AN: This idea popped into my head, and it seemed like a good idea. Naruto will be dark. There will probably be things that you won't agree with. Naruto may seem too powerful but deal with it. He has the strongest being sealed in him. On top of that his heritage is strong. I plan on writing in several weaknesses that won't present themselves right away, so don't say he is unstoppable right away. Naruto will not be paired with anyone. I don't think that he can make that kind of attachment in this setting.
I don't own this. Imagine that.
Moving on:
Chapter one
In the Elemental Countries, there was a country named the Land of Fire. In the center of this country was a hidden village. The Village Hidden in the Leaves. It is one of five great shinobi villages, and many argue that it is the strongest of the five. In this village there was a boy called many things, but his name was Naruto. Currently the boy was seven years old and he was receiving a beating over something he had no control over whatsoever.
Naruto didn't know how he got his power. All he knew was that after a severe beating when he was seven he could make people see and believe what he wanted. It took almost no effort and he was only limited by his imagination.
He was never beaten that bad again. He was never mobbed again. Sure he was hit by a few punches, kunai, and jutsus by surprise, but they never got past one or two hits.
Sometimes when the villagers were getting restless he found a drunk mob looking for him. It was during these times that he learned and tested what he could do. He made sure that he would remember who participated in these mobs. If they were repeat offenders, he made sure to find them later.
When he did find them, he made sure he had plenty of time, and tested out some of his darker and more painful ideas for his power. He was careful to not break them. He was also careful to stay out of sight, and never revealed himself as who he was. To his victims, he was a 'honorable citizen of Kohona' and wouldn't stand for what they were doing to a child. Most of the time after his visits, people where too scared of this 'honorable citizen' to go looking for him again. Those that did, would never forget the experience. It was during one of these home visits, that he found out about the Kyuubi.
He felt confused, betrayed, and angry. He had asked the Hokage why people hate him, and the Old Man just said that he didn't know. He made a choice when he left that low rank jonin's home that night. He would watch the Old Man closer. If he was truly trying to protect him like he suspected, then all was well and he would move on, but if the Hokage was like the rest of the people in this village, then things would only get worse for those who hated him.
The majority of the time he made the mobs that chased him believe that he had boxed himself in, by going into a dead end alley, or something of the like. In truth, when his attackers thought that he was cornered in front of them, he was actually on the rooftops using his almost photographic memory. He looked for any jutsu used on him, how the ninja in the crowd held and threw their weapons, and finally their faces. Remembering their faces was actually what he prided himself on. He made sure to find names to those faces before their home visits.
Sometimes while waiting for the beating to end on the rooftops, he would see his ANBU 'guard' doing the same thing he was. Only they were enjoying the 'show' as he had heard one of them say. Oh his 'guard' made sure to step in, after the mob had tired of torturing him and had about to go for a killing blow.
Finding the ANBU for their home visits was exceedingly difficult. He made sure to remember their masks, stature, and hair style. Sometimes he got lucky and found one walking around off duty and followed them home, but the majority of the people from ANBU he found by going through old records from when they were Chuunin. Knowing his way around the Hokage Tower definitely had its benefits.
Despite the difficulty of finding the ANBU who watch his 'show' and take bets on how long he can last, his home visits for them had actually proven to be a challenge. While they were much more hardened individuals than the standard civilian or even ninja, the ANBU operatives had much less tying them to life. The less one person has tying them to live, the more important those things are. Naruto has found that he needs to keep a delicate balance while enacting his revenge on his 'guards' so that they don't break and are mostly fit for duty afterwards.
After the ANBU did their 'duty' and broke up the mob and gave them a stern warning to not do it again, was when Naruto's challenge began.
He had to keep up his naturally quick regeneration, so his guards with sharp eyes don't notice anything wrong. After they go through the charade of walking all around the hospital, trying to find the 'right' doctor, Naruto finally gets a room with one of the pre approved doctors and nurses working on him.
Naruto has to get what their diagnostic jutsus to read back as if it where a real body, on top of keeping up his regeneration. After they had checked 'him' over, they aid along his quick healing with medical jutsus, which he has to make look like it was working correctly. On top of it all, he had to make himself unnoticeable from everyone in the room including people who just poke their head in to see what is going on.
It was a challenge and that was why Naruto did it. Pushing his barriers all the time.
An interesting aspect of his power, was that he could make anyone feel what he had felt and amplify it to heights never normally felt. Due to all of his beatings in his life, he could make anyone around him feel as if their chest had caved in, bones broken, coughing up blood, severe concussions, all the elements used on them, and much much more. The blonde had recently found that there was a flip side as well. He could make people feel pleasurable sensations as well. Since then, he had utilized his true transformation technique and went into the seedier parts of town, to find pleasurable contact, as he knew he wouldn't get it as himself. Now he can drop someone in either pleasure or pain. Male or female it doesn't matter.
Once the doctors were done healing 'him' Naruto made himself pass out in exhaustion.
An hour or so later, Naruto's eyes narrowed when he saw the Hokage enter the room. The doctors were done, so the only concentration he needed was to make himself unnoticeable and to sustain an unconscious him on the bed. With only two illusions up, he was more than free to think of other things.
His mind unconsciously drifted to when he was ten years old and doing something similar to what he had just done.
-Flashback-
Naruto was close. He was close to mastering this power, this gift. He needed to run a few more tests to find out the extent of what he could do.
Right now, the blonde was sitting in a room filled with doctors and nurses running in and out of the room. The reason for this was because he made it look like 'he' was severely beaten by a bunch of idiots. The reason this particular beating was so severe was for him to test his concentration, awareness, and liveliness of his illusionary body.
Recently the blonde boy had been reading up on human anatomy. The reason for this was to find the areas that caused the most pain, as well as all fatal points on the human body. With this newly acquired knowledge, he made his beating about as severe as he could while remaining plausible that 'he' would be able to survive. By the looks of the room he was in, he succeeded.
In the few short years he had had this power of illusions, this was by far the most difficult task he had set for himself. There were so many variables in this situation. The people coming and going needed two sets of illusions every time they came into the room. 'He' needed to be there for all to see. With numerous wounds. Said wounds were being 'healed' by both his advanced regeneration factor and the many different doctors working on different parts of his body. On top of this, everyone in the room needed to not be able to notice him standing in the corner out of the way, focusing on what was happening intently.
The Old Man came in the room, and he almost lost it. Gone was the man's soft smile, and gentle face that he thought of as his grandfather. In its place was a cold and calculative warrior that Naruto had never seen before. It scared him a little. Sarutobi was pacing the far side of the room, passing the boy occasionally. He was speaking to himself quietly so that none of the doctors could hear him, but Naruto caught bits and pieces.
"This is terrible... What if the seal breaks when the vessel... Need to lower... Too many beatings... Tone it down..."
It was at this point Naruto stopped listening to the old m-. No the Hokage. The Hokage didn't think of him as human. He wasn't even the demon to the old man. Just the vessel. Possibly worse than that thought was that the Hokage had a hand in his beatings and treatment when he was younger and couldn't take what he wanted.
Naruto put those thoughts aside for the moment as he felt his illusions start to slip. He would think of this later and plan accordingly.
Now more than ever was he thankful that he didn't tell Sarutobi about his gift for being the jailor of the Kyuubi. Naruto had just wanted to surprise the old man with something that would inevitably help him in his ninja career and path to Hokage. The only thing stopping the boy from telling his Hokage about his talent before now was the fact that Naruto wanted it mastered before he told anyone.
There were no more problems with holding his illusions. He finished the night and when all the doctors and nurses left the room the blonde replaced himself with his counterpart and went into a light sleep there in the hospital room.
-End Flashback-
Naruto was never the same to the Hokage after that night. Sure he still called him old, but the warmth that he had in his lack of respect was no longer there. It was a subtle shift, and he wouldn't be surprised if nobody picked up on it.
A year after that night he declared that he had mastered his gift to the best of his ability. It took him four years of constant work to get it to an instinctual level whenever his 'danger sense' went off. That particular sense just so happened to be on most of the time in the village. Being surrounded by people who hated him and all.
The only thing Naruto never got to test his gift against was the Sharringan. They were wiped out before he was comfortable enough to test it on the bloodline users of the village.
His gift could beat the Byakugan, most of the time. The could only follow him if they had been tracking his movements with their eyes active before he set up an illusion. Naruto also found that they were the only ones so far that were able to dispel an illusion if they noticed something was wrong. Of course it took an insane amount of effort to do so, as pain was usually involved in the illusion, so they couldn't use that to break it. Everyone else was trapped no matter what they did. He had tested that out plenty of times.
The Hokage had just stepped into the room of Naruto Uzumaki. The boy just rolled his unseen eyes at the man. He did this every time Naruto went through his 'mob exercise' as he liked to call it.
The old Hokage would come into the room looking worried and acted as a good grandfather should, but then his eyes were laid bare to the unconscious form of the demon vessel. Of course it wasn't the boy more often than not, but the old man didn't realize that. Once Sarutobi knew that Naruto was truly asleep, he dropped his mask of grandfather, and in its place was cold indifference.
He checked the boy's seal, making sure all was well in that department, then left, telling one of the nurses to come tell him when 'the vessel' was up and around.
Naruto had long since gotten over the pang of sadness he felt when he saw the Hokage act like this. He was desensitized after the tenth trip to the hospital in as many weeks.
It didn't even effect him like he thought, about knowing about the Kyuubi. When Naruto went into his mind to speak with the demon sealed inside of him, nothing happened. Nothing special or groundbreaking. Naruto had thanked the demon for both the power of illusions and the faster healing. All he got as a response was, "As if I had a choice". He never went back after confronting the demon when he was nine and a half. One reason was because the demon didn't seem like much of a talker, and it felt like he was unintentionally gloating waving his freedom to come and go as he pleased, while the great and powerful Kyuubi was stuck in its cage. Sometimes he felt an almost not there approval of his actions from the fox, but didn't think much of it.
As for the Hokage's behavior towards Naruto, the boy felt stupid for not noticing it beforehand. The only thing he could come up with was that he was always too focused on his illusions to pay attention to the details of how the old man acted. Now that he had his power down on an instinctual level, he was able to notice things that were lost to him before.
Every time he went to his favorite ramen stand he noticed that both the old man cooking and his daughter the waitress were much more focused on getting his money than actually being nice to him. The same held true for most of the places he was allowed in.
It hurt knowing that the few people in the village who tolerated him was only because he was a paying customer they wouldn't turn away. But as with everything else in his life so far, he put up with it. For now.
Naruto was torn from his musings of the past by an ANBU operative appearing before him. At the time he was just walking home from his graduation exam to become a genin. He was told that all graduates were to report back in two days to receive their team assignments.
The ANBU told him that the Hokage wished to see him immediately. Naruto let the man put his hand on his shoulder and they were transported into the Kage's office.
Like all other times when he was in the village leader's presence, he created a fake of himself and went unnoticeable. The blonde was somewhat shocked to see that the old man had a serious look on his face instead of his grandfather facade.
Sarutobi spoke first, "Naruto, I have been keeping a secret from you. You know, that you were born on the night of the Kyuubi attack correct?" Getting a nod and a slightly fearful look from 'Naruto' he continued, "You also know that our Yondaime Hokage died protecting the village, correct?"
Getting another nod, "This is where I have lied to you. My successor did in fact defeat the demon, but never killed it, like you were led to believe." At this the 'boy's' eyes widened as if everything snapped into focus.
While behind the illusion sitting in the other chair in front of the Hokage's desk, the blonde narrowed his eyes. Naruto was trying to figure out what the Hokage wanted from this 'revelation'.
Giving the boy time to think it through, he spoke again, "The Yondaime's only option was to seal the demon and the only thing capable of holding a demon of that caliber back was a newborn baby. You Naruto."
Sarutobi could see 'Naruto's' mind was working furiously with this information. It was why he was beaten, overpriced, shunned, insulted, and treated as less than human. The people were ignorant enough to not see the demon and container as two different things.
That's when the blond saw it. There was a glint of triumph in the man's eyes. It was almost not there. He almost questioned himself, but held true to his instinct. Naruto thought, 'So that's what he is doing. He wanted to tell my the real reason behind his suffering, while showing that he himself is above the others, and still cares about me as more than the container. Ha, some joke.' Naruto then realized that the Sandaime wanted undying loyalty from him. The kind of loyalty that only came from those who have nothing, but one person giving them purpose in life.
Interrupting both Narutos from their thinking, Sarutobi spoke softly, "I hope you realize that you are not the demon and I hope you overcome your handicap with the villagers to become a respected shinobi of the leaf, and hopefully take my place one day."
The real Naruto snorted at this. He had met the real Kyuubi. No way was he a giant fox demon. He also knew that he was no longer truly human. It was something that didn't bother him as much as he thought it would. If it weren't for the seal syphoning off some of the Kyuubi yokai and putting it into him, then the way he was treated growing up would have definitely made him into some kind of monster.
'Naruto' replied, "Okay Old Man. If you say so. Now if you don't have anything else for me, I think I need to be alone for a while." As he was walking through the office door he called back, "I hope you put me on a good team, Old Man!"
The blonde demon container made his way back to his apartment. His thoughts were filled with which team he would be placed on and who the senseis were going to be for this round of genin. He was also thinking of how to adjust his illusion of himself to better reflect that he was finally told of the Kyuubi.