In this fanfiction, I really want to make Naruto a cold blooded ninja. A person who strives to find himself friends around whom he could just be himself without others fearing him for their lives. A story where he doesn't want to be the Hokage, fulfill his promise to Sakura, bring peace to the world and work for what he wants.
Unlike every other fanfiction where he just practically adores Iruka for how treated him, won't happen in this fiction because the story won't have any significant changes without it. So Iruka just taught Naruto like any other student in his class without trying to sabotage his education in spite of harboring ill feelings towards him. He didn't treated him to ramen or tried talking to him because it wasn't necessary for him to do so.
(Night of the Graduation Exam)
Naruto took a break to catch up his breath after being on the run from the ninjas chasing him. During this short break he wondered what made the scroll so valuable as so many people were chasing him but he thought, it was just a part of the test. Still if the scroll possessed the information of so many awesome techniques, he thought learning a few won't matter so he copied the information of the first technique that he saw in the scroll. As he went on the next technique in the scroll, he found a hand on his shoulder which made him beg in desperation while grabbing the leg of the person who caught him.
"Please don't fail me. I know that getting caught on this supplement test was failing but sending such a large number of ninjas just to catch me is just cheating. It was hard enough to steal a scroll when the entire place where the scroll was kept was so heavily guarded and monitored. Please, I don't want to fail the graduation exam". Naruto begged grabbing Anko's leg without noticing while she just exchanged confused looks with Ibiki.
"What graduation test are you talking about Uzumaki Naruto?" Ibiki asked the Jinchuuriki begging in front of them because he knew nothing of any supplementary graduation test.
Hearing the question, Naruto took the hold off from Anko's leg before looking at the person who caught him to answer the question. "You know, the test one take if they failed the original graduation exam to get promoted to a genin. Mizuki-sensei told me that if I could get him this scroll, he would pass me". Naruto told the duo in front of them while giving them the Scroll of Seals.
"So why were you copying the information of techniques written in the scroll, Gaki?" Anko asked the boy who she deduced was being taken advantage of because of his desperation to pass.
"Well I thought, if what Mizuki-sensei was telling the truth then this scroll must contain the information of awesome ninjutsu that I could use to beat that smug grin of that Uchiha asshole. So I just thought of getting a few of these techniques for myself but I was only able to get the information of something called SHADOW CLONE JUTSU which I probably can't even use since I can't even do a normal CLONE JUTSU before you two caught me". Naruto explained himself while he sat down on the ground, clearly depressed of failing his supplementary test.
"Listen to me very carefully Uzumaki Naruto". Ibiki spoke with such a depth in his voice that made Naruto pay all his attention to the scarred faced man. "Never in the history of Konoha, there had been a supplementary test for academy students after failing the graduation test. Your Mizuki-sensei took advantage of your desperation to pass, to get an invaluable artifact in which the knowledge of very dangerous techniques Konoha ninjas had developed or stolen from other ninjas. Right now you a thief who stole from one of the most guarded places in this entire village without anyone noticing for an entire fifteen minutes and that alone gives me the right to kill you here and now. But I Morino Ibiki the head of Torture and Interrogation department will give you an offer. If you can bring this Mizuki fellow to me alive without any arms or legs, you'll be promoted to a genin". Ibiki told Naruto with a grim smile to his face.
"Can't I just bring him to you beaten up? I don't think maiming a person is something I would like to do". Naruto told Ibiki as he got up.
"I wasn't a suggestion Uzumaki Naruto, it was an order. As a ninja we steal, lie, maim, torture and even kill on orders of our superior. This is the reality of the world you're so desperate to enter but now you don't have the option to not enter. Fail to capture Mizuki and bring him to me like the way I want, I'll kill you without any hesitation because you're already a criminal or bring him to me like I want and become the first to get a battlefield promotion to genin. The choice is yours boy, so what will you choose?" Ibiki asked the boy standing in front of him.
"Tell me where to bring him and I also want money ". Naruto told the man who had made it very clear to him that he didn't had the option but to be a ninja. Even when he felt disgusted, now that he understood the true nature of the job was not rescuing people in need like him.
"Bring him to the Hokage Tower and I'll take care of the rest". Ibiki told Naruto who just ran towards the rendezvous point told to him by Mizuki.
"What was that Ibiki?" Anko asked her boss clearly angry with him.
"That was me preparing him for the future in our line of work Anko. Unlike you, he just won't be given the chance of being a normal citizen because of what he holds. Now after all he has gone through in his small life, he had finally reached the point of desperation where he could do just about anything. He was successful in breaching one of the most heavily guarded location in Konoha located under Hokage Tower without getting noticed just to pass a fake test. Clearly he has the aptitude of becoming a beast of a ninja even if he still doesn't see it, then there is always a chance of Jinchuuriki being on flight risk". Ibiki told Anko before they both chased the boy without him noticing and it was incredibly easy with his extremely vast reserves yelling I'm here.
After a few hours since his meeting with the T&I duo, Naruto finally reached the rendezvous point with the large scroll hanging on his back with a large rope. Seeing the boy drenched in sweat and covered in bandages which were obviously wrapped in hurry because some of the wounds underneath were still visible and not properly cleaned, Mizuki came out of hiding.
"I'm very glad to see you here Naruto. Do you know never since the beginning of this stronghold called Konoha, no one has ever been able to steal that scroll. Now hand that to me, so that I can pass you". Mizuki told Naruto while bringing his hand forward to receive it.
"Take it sensei". Naruto told Mizuki as he handed him the scroll which he immediately strapped on to his back. "I can understand why no one was ever able to pass this test sensei. It is so much difficult with so many ninjas chasing you but Uzumaki Naruto is no commoner, ttebayo!" Naruto told Mizuki before hugging him at the waist. "Sensei can you please take me to the hospital, I don't think I'll stay alive for much longer in this condition.
"Tell me Naruto, do you know what happened on the night when Kyuubi attacked?" Mizuki asked Naruto as he put a over the Jinchuuriki's head.
"Yondime-sama defeated the evil beast to save Konoha". Naruto barely spoke while struggling to still stand even after using Mizuki as support.
"That my dear boy is a lie which everyone is told until they become Chunin. Kyuubi is one of the nine creatures the world know as Bijuu. These monsters are made up of chakra and could never be destroyed. With literally an unlimited supply of chakra, they can only be sealed to stop them but no non living things can hold them. So like many before him, Yondime-sama sealed the monster within a child making it a weapon of mass destruction who is able to wield the extremely corrosive chakra of the bijuu. Such a human who contain a bijuu within them is called a Jinchuuriki and you're one of them". Mizuki told Naruto who just couldn't stop shaking while chanting this is not true but now everything made sense to him. Why the adults hated him? Why no one would let their kids play with him? Why no one will sell anything to him? Why drunken adults would try to hurt him while shouting reasons of revenge? While he was still organizing his thoughts the voice of Mizuki struck his ears. "Also I'm willing to bet other ninja villages will give me huge amounts of money for a bijuu. It's a shame that you'll die when they extract the Kyuubi out of you".
Hearing that Mizuki wanted to sell him to someone killing him made him angry beyond belief. So he took out two hidden kunais that he had been hiding in his sleeves while pretending to fall on his knees due to surprise and stabbed through Mizuki's knees making him hit Naruto with a kunai of his own to his head. Just as Mizuki thought he killed the Jinchuuriki, the blonde dissolved into a small explosion of smoke and the scroll strapped to his back turned back into the real Naruto. Taking the advantage of Mizuki's surprise, Naruto got away a fair distance away from his teacher after stealing the two giant shurikens strapped onto his teacher's back.
"You know sensei, I was caught by a man named Morino Ibiki on my way here. He explained me what I had done and what is the consequence of my crime but he gave me a way out. All I had to do was get rid of all your limbs and bring you back to him alive. Also thank you for telling me why everybody hates me. Now time to beat you up sensei". Naruto told Mizuki who was shouting in pain while laying on the ground while making a handsign. "Shadow Clone Jutsu". With that Mizuki was fearing for his life while Anko and Ibiki were very surprised on the sheer number of clones the boy was able to produce. The clone army of the blonde teenager dressed in orange pummeled their teacher to unconscious before chopping him off his limbs and bringing him to Ibiki to get his promotion and money.
Kakashi in this story would actually teach Naruto something beside tree climbing and teamwork because he actually wants to learn unlike his pink haired teammate. I want Naruto to have more than Shadow Clones, Rasengan and Summoning Jutsu which he rarely and doesn't use to its full potential like Jiraya.
(Land of Waves)
After killing Haku and inspiring Zabuza to take revenge for his underling, Naruto usually spent most of his time at the graves of Zabuza and Haku while Sasuke and Sakura guarded Tazuna and his family. Though Kakashi told Sasuke and Sakura let Naruto alone to mourn made the young Uchiha extremely angry. He wanted to know how Naruto actually beat the person single handedly who he couldn't defeat himself but his sensei had to forbid it. The young Uchiha had taken a great deal of interest since the day blondie came up with a plan to free Kakashi out of Zabuza's imprisonment and was getting very jealous of his exponential progress over his gradual progress. So in moment of anger he told Naruto that only fools mourned the death of their enemies when he came home to their temporary home to satisfy his position in the group while Sakura just enthusiastically repeated his words to the blonde without giving it much thought.
Kakashi thought Naruto would seamlessly bounce back to his usual boisterous self but after a week he took matters into his own hands. So he went to the grave Naruto built for Zabuza and Haku against his wish of cashing their bodies over a hill nearby with the view of the bridge. When he got to the location, he was very surprised to see his student just staring at the bridge while sitting at the edge of the cliff.
"Are you finally done mourning Naruto?" Kakashi asked his student who had been mourning for two weeks.
"Kakashi-sensei, will I become someone worse than Zabuza?" Naruto asked his teacher while he still stared at the bridge.
Hearing what his student asked him, Kakashi just went and sat beside Naruto at the edge of the cliff. "Why do you ask such a thing Naruto?"
"You know the day I stole the SCROLL OF SEALS, Mizuki told me that jinchuuriki like me are made as weapons of war. When the Kyuubi supplied me with his chakra on the bridge, I felt its sheer power. I also grew angrier, I wanted to kill and I enjoyed the mercenaries I killed on that bridge but as that chakra left me, I felt disgusted. So if someone like me, who was created to harness the power of a bijuu to be a weapon of war; that means I'm nothing but a tool for Konoha to use in the end with no choice but to do anything they ask me even against my will. In the end I would end up like Haku who was the tool for Zabuza, who was a tool for Kirigakure and look what kind of a life he led even after escaping his master. A cold, harsh and loveless life while being on the run for his life. I'm already living his life to an extent and on the day of my birthday even the last part comes into reality". Naruto told Kakashi who was internally very panicked after listening to the very thoughts of Naruto.
"Do you know anything about me Naruto?" Kakashi asked the boy sitting beside him.
"No. Even on the day when you told us all to introduce ourselves, you didn't told us much about yourself". Naruto replied back to his teacher.
"Unlike you, I knew what it means to have the love and admiration of friends and family but I had a very troubled childhood. I was like Sasuke in many regards, talented with famous family members. I graduated the academy at the age of 5 but soon my father and my only family committed suicide after choosing comrades over the completion of a mission. So I became a person who believed that completion of a mission was the most important part of being a ninja apart of understanding the true nature of the job. I was placed on a genin with an Uchiha named Obito and a regular civilian girl named Nohara Rin under a man named Namikaze Minato who you know as the Yondime Hokage.
He placed teamwork above everything and passed me in the true genin test even after I faked working with my teammates. Everything from that point on went very fast, we completed missions after mission and just at the age of 6 I became a chunin. This was the time around when the world was in its first phases of another ninja war which meant a lot of negotiations were going on. Time went by and by the time I reached Jonin at the age of 12 while my teammates were just chunin at the age of 18.
The war was getting very heated up and I was given the task to lead my team to an insignificant mission to secure the perimeter of a bridge while my sensei took care of a small army. The mission given to me would be considered very vital if the person dealing with the army was not sensei. That was the mission where sensei received the title off the YELLOW FLASH but things on my part didn't go as planned. My teammate Rin got kidnapped and I lost one of my eye but I decided to complete the mission without trying to save her. This made Obito very angry because he had a very huge crush on Rin and refused to abandon her according to my plan. In the end we went to the cave she was being kept captive in and rescued her but before dying, the last Iwa ninja alive set the explosives in the cave alive. I was surely going to die there but Obito swapped places with me and got half of his body crushed under a giant rock. Before the entire cave collapsed, he made me promise him that I would protect Rin with my life and gave me his single working eye as a present for becoming a Jonin which Rin implanted in the place of my damaged eye with her medical ninjutsu.
After that incident a year or two passed by before the war was coming to an end when Kirigakure kidnapped Rin while we were on a mission. They had forcefully turned her into some kind of weapon which they would unleash after reaching Konoha, hurting the village immensely. I fought against a complete ANBU squad of Kiri to rescue her but while I was killing the enemies, she suddenly put herself between me and the enemy before smiling to me and saying- "You know what is the right thing to do Kakashi". At that moment I knew, she would die of shame if anything happened to Konoha because of her and I knew, I would have to kill her to save the village. So I chose the lesser of the two demons and killed her knowing she would rather die at my hand then to hurt the village.
After that, I just went crazy. I joined the ANBU and accepted only the toughest of missions, serving Konoha under the reign of my teacher while hoping one day I would die on a mission. Then on the night of your birthday, the Kyuubi attacked and I lost my final member of my family. From that point onward I just completed missions after missions of the highest difficulties like a man possessed. It went food for nutrients, water for fluid, sleep for rest, missions for suicide attempts and hospital beds for treatment. There was even a point in my career where I attempted to kill Sandime-sama but he obviously forgave my actions before forcefully kicking out of ANBU to make me live the life of a Joinin who also served as a teacher for genins.
Before your team there were none that I passed because they didn't had the courage to break rules for helping their future comrades. I know this team is not something that one can call a functional team with an airhead in you, a fan girl in Sakura who doesn't want to train at all and a supreme talent in Sasuke who just don't want to work with anyone. On the day of your test, I saw you wanting to work with Sakura but not with Sasuke, she wanting to work with Sasuke but not you but when you needed food the most, they fed you at the risk of failing since they both understood they could not defeat me even with all of your powers combined. Since a person with an empty stomach is not someone who could fight with everything he has got, they fed you before trying take me down with your help. This made me pass all of you. Still when I was unsure of teaching anyone of you, you and Sasuke pulled off that suicidal stunt of risking your lives for me while Sakura kept guard of Tazuna even when she was ready to faint.
You know Naruto, you're a part of the team which could achieve great things if you all really tried. You're literally a person who was created to be great ninja and with the chakra of your tenant, you could nearly be unstoppable. There currently is a jinchuuriki in Kumo named Killer Bee who is considered one of the strongest ninjas alive, even stronger than most of the Kages because he was able to tame the power of the bijuu he held for his own. Even if you can't like most of the jinchuurikis out there, Sasuke could suppress the power of Kyuubi with Sharingan if he gets truly stronger and Sakura could be the support you two would need while fighting with your full potential.
Don't worry about something that you can't change like the general population opinion of yourself or Sakura's lack of interest in you. The only ways to change someone's view about something is by actions or brute force but the latter only creates grudges. Find people who will accept for who you're Naruto, who will always have your back even in toughest of the situations and believe it or not, I'm willing to be that person for you Naruto". Kakashi told the Jinchuuriki before ruffling his hair a little.
"Do you think, I'm fit to be a ninja Kakashi-sensei?" Naruto asked the masked man.
"Considering you survived the hell of your childhood, successfully stealing the scroll of seals, fulfilling Ibiki's conditions and thinking quick on your feet while being in life threatening danger; you're definitely fit to be a ninja but right now you're a street thug at most. Your chakra control, taijutsu, genjutsu and ninjutsu skills all suck even for our academy standards while you don't use that crafty head of yours to its full potential". Kakashi honestly told his opinions to the blonde.
"Will you help me to be a better ninja, Kakashi-sensei?" Naruto asked his teacher.
"I was waiting for this moment from the time I accepted you all as my team. I'm glad to see that the hopeless one starting to look the most promising one. Meet me every day at four in the evening and I will teach you chakra control and taijutsu till you reach an acceptable level before moving onto the complicated stuff". Kakashi told Naruto with an eye smile.
"I won't disappoint you sensei". He told Kakashi who just smile and left away.