Hey there. This is my second Fan-fic. It is a different setting than the first, and I have a bit more...muse for this one, I think. Anyways, i apologize for any terrible writing that I am sure I have placed before you.

Yes, this is yaoi, just not till later on in the story. There will be hints early on, but nothing incredibly major. Pairings include SasuNaru, KakaIru, and possibly Sakura/Lee.

Naruto thinking

Kyuubi talking

Disclaimer: I, the writer of this fic, do not own Naruto or any of the characters mentioned from said series in this fic. The creator(s) of the manga/anime own Naruto and said characters

Naruto Uzumaki is obnoxious, loud-mouthed, unpredictable, rude, and obsessed with ramen. At least, that is how every one used to see him. It has been eight years since Sasuke left the village of Konoha and it has been four years since a certain blond-haired ninja disappeared.

In order to give the whole picture, we must start from where this story truly begins...

14 Years Ago

A six-year-old Naruto scurried down the road, keeping his head down and trying to avoid detection. He pulled the hat down lower over his bright yellow hair as a villager stared. He quickly became focused on hiding the key features of himself and bumped into someone on accident, causing the hand pulling down the hat to jerk and the hat to ride up, revealing a sliver of his hair. It was a dead give away and the whole street seemed to pause, the noise level dropping almost instantly. Naruto could feel the many cold eyes piercing him and he let out a soft whimper. "It's him! It is the demon!" One villager shouted, pointing an accusing finger at the small boy. Naruto pulled the hat down and took a few steps back, terrified about what the villagers would do to him. "It bumped me! It was trying to stab me, I could feel the blade press against me as it passed."
"It is out to get us all!"

"Demon!"

"Monster!"

"How could they let something like you live!"

"Why don't you just go and kill yourself?"

"We have to get it before it gets us!"

The tears started to fall then, big, salty drops that made paths down the scarred cheeks. "I not a monster!" He shouted, raising his head finally and staring at the villagers with wide eyes, full of fear and defiance. He could not believe them, not any longer. Old Man Hokage had told him that they were wrong, so they were most definitely confused about what they were saying.

"It talked! It's trying to curse us! Get it!"

The villagers started to advance on the six-year-old and his eyes grew impossibly wider. "You wrong! Not monster! Not it! I'm Naruto!" His desperate pleas only made their cries of hatred worsen. They continued to advance until Naruto turned and ran, managing to break through a line of the villagers. The tears continued to stream from his small face and he wondered why they hated him so much. Whenever he tried to prove to them that he was not the evil being that they called him, they only became more hateful towards him. As he ran, an idea came to the little boy's mind. What if he pretended to be goofy, happy, and ignored their hate? If he didn't react to their angry shouts with tears, but instead with a grin, would they leave him alone?

The idea seemed brilliant to Naruto and he stopped running to face his pursuers. Wiping the tears from his face and forcing the happiest smile he could manage on his face, (for a six-year-old, it was pretty decent), Naruto waved at the villagers chasing him. "I'm Naruto Uzu-maki, ba-we-vet!"{!1}

Academy, Year 1 (A Few Years Later)

School did not sound entirely appealing to the young ninja-wanna'-be, but he went anyway, thinking that maybe this was his chance to prove himself. "Iruka-sensei!" Naruto exclaimed as he entered the building. He received a smile and a nod before being asked to find a seat. He scanned the room and saw an empty seat at the same table where the kid from the lake sat. His smile grew a few centimeters and he quickly sat a seat away from the dark-haired boy. Sadly, a pink haired girl was in the seat directly beside the other boy, so one seat away was as close as he could get. It wasn't so bad because the girl was kind of pretty, but she was rather annoying with her squeaky voice, dramatic expressions, and clingy behavior.

The day passed normally with little problems, besides the ugly glares that Naruto received from all of his classmates, except for the dark-haired one, who only glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. Naruto refused to be affected by the stares, but also refused to put up his mask and therefore did not smile once at any of the other children.

Naruto thought school wasn't all that bad and the week soon passed quickly. He found he could ignore the glares easier now that he was having fun. However, as the week wore on, he also found the glares increasingly more intense. He continued his ritual of ignoring and focused on work, finding it easy and much more fun than he had ever expected. The words 'believe it' never left his mouth until the last few minutes before they were dismissed at the end of the week. Iruka-sensei handed back his papers with a wide grin and praised him for being the top of the class in scores for the week. Naruto returned the grin with a wider one and then noticed something. The glares and just plain dirty looks had increased triple fold. Frowns and muttered angry words now accompanioned the looks. He heard whispers of the words, 'monster' and 'spoiled demon' and it was then that it hit him. He was never going to be accepted anywhere for who he was. The only time anyone partially accepted him was when he was a stupid idiot. Gritting his teeth, Naruto shut his eyes for a moment. By the time he loosened his jaw and opened his eyes, his entire demeanor had changed.

A huge grin split his face and his eyes were squinting due to how large the grin was. He made a peace sign and laughed at the class while shouting, "Believe it!" This earned him groans and eye-rolls, the best reaction he had received since the beginning of the week. He turned in his seat and placed his paper on his desk, crooked instead of his normal O.C.D behavior of making the paper straight. They won't accept the real me. I'm going to have to create someone completely opposite to my true self for them to even look at me like I exist, instead of this 'it' or 'monster' they call me. A mask. Yeah, I will have to wear this 'mask' from now on, that way they will at least look at me as more than what they imagine me to be.

Academy, Year 3

"NARUTO!" Iruka-sensei practically screamed, his head growing ten times bigger in the view of the students. Naruto grinned sheepishly and placed his hands behind his head, locking the fingers together. "What? It worked, didn't it?" This statement and his earlier actions caused the older man to explode into a lecture about pranks and being a diligent student, or rather how Naruto should not do pranks in school and was not a diligent student because he didn't apply himself to the right things. 'Inner' Naruto rolled his eyes and launched into a lecture of his own, whilst 'Outer' Naruto idiotically grinned and rubbed the side of his head.

Behind them, the entire class groaned as Iruka made them all go through the cloning exercise again. Of course, Naruto failed, but his mind was too distracted to actually think about his failure and was more focused on how he was going to pass the academy without letting people in on his secret. It was a problem he had thought about for three years now and all the scenarios had led to someone, like Shikamaru, figuring out his secret.

Later on that day, as he sat on a rooftop with Mizuki-sensei, Naruto grinned up at his 'trusted' sensei while having a conversation with himself. The conversation had taken a suspicious turn, but he couldn't let his teacher know that he suspected. No, instead, he played along, pretending to be the naïve little boy who would follow his trusted sensei's every word. Mentally, Naruto rolled his eyes for the tenth time that day. "Alright, Mizuki-sensei! Thanks!" He shouted over his shoulder, glancing back for a split second to catch a creepy look on the man's face. A sense of dread filled Naruto and he let out a heavy sigh. This was not going to end well, he could already sense it.

Stealing the scroll had been easy, though he would have found it easier if he wasn't masquerading as the village idiot. He had to trick several people, including the Hokage, in an attempt to protect his cover. Disappearing into the forest and learning the technique, however, was harder in the sense of hiding what he truly was capable of. In fact, he learned the new jutsu within minutes, but he wrestled in the dirt with the clones to make it seem as if he had worked hard. When his two teachers found him and the fight broke out, Naruto was glad for the years of practice. It was hard to not break his cover and win the fight within moments. He managed to force his reactions to slow, which meant that Iruka took all the damage. Naruto felt guilty about it, but refused to let it bother him in the middle of a serious moment.

Winning against Mizuki was easy, especially with the new technique, and somehow Naruto managed to win without showing either of his sensei what lay beneath the surface. All in all, the day had not been as bad as it could have been. Sure, a few people got hurt, and/or, tricked that probably could have dealt without it, but in the end, Naruto felt like it was worth it. Though, he was sure no one except for him would see it that way.

Again, I proved that my mask can help me through these situations. I wonder if any one has seen through it. After all, even I cannot be THAT smart. I guess, though, that it would be hard to see something when you aren't looking for it, even for a ninja. Maybe the people in this village really are that dense. Hn. This makes my head hurt too much. I should get to the hospital before someone accuses me of not caring about the wounded.

1. This is six-year-old Naruto speaking here. Ba-we-vet is "Believe it!". I was lazy and had him say his name correctly, minus the - in Uzumaki.

So...How was it? Did it suck? Was it terrible? Tell me, tell me, please!