The small boy was sitting dejectedly on a swing. Most of his classmates were in an excited mass over by their parents, proudly clutching their new Konoha ninja headbands, while he had neither managed to pass his exams and gain the headband he desperately desired, or parents to celebrate it with. After sitting there for around half an hour, he wandered off. He consoled himself with the fact that he had only failed it twice, and as he'd started attending the academy earlier, he would now be with students his own age.

As the child wandered the streets, he heard the mutters and felt the stares of the villagers. While nothing new, it still upset him. He quickly ducked down an alley, took a secret shortcut, and jumped over a low fence, taking him to his new favourite hiding spot, where so far not even Iruka had managed to find him.

Elsewhere, a tall man with long pale hair was searching for the boy. He had high hopes for what today could bring, but if he couldn't find the boy, he'd have to wait a whole year to try again. Finally, after ages of slipping around the village, he finally saw his target leave an alley. The boy probably had some sort of nest in there; it would be where he'd go once he'd got the scroll, and where the man could take it off him.

"Naruto!" the man called.

At the mention of the name, most of the surrounding people looked even grimmer than usual. The boy, however, had already taken off running. If the man hadn't had a shadow clone in front of him already, he would have most likely lost the slippery little thing. As it was, he had a hard time restraining him. 'Better and better – the kid certainly seems to be capable of sneaking in, grabbing the scroll and escaping,' the man thought to himself.

"You're not in trouble, I just want to talk!" the man said, as the boy hung from his clone's grasp. He formed a few quick seals, placing a genjutsu around them that would divert attention from his words. "There's something I need to tell you about the exam. There's a special field test that can be taken which mimics a mission. You can use it to pass and become a genin!"

"What? Why didn't I know this earlier?" the child said loudly. The man winced. His genjutsu could keep civilians from noticing anything, but it was harder to affect ninja, so it was best to keep things quiet.

"It's a secret so people don't rely on it. I needed special authorisation from the Hokage himself. I think you deserve this chance. But letting others know about it fails you automatically." The man was satisfied with the lies he'd spun.

"What do I do, Mizuki-sensei?" the boy asked quickly. The man grinned to himself. Manipulating the demon was easier than he'd expected.

"It's simple. There's a scroll in the Hokage's office with jutsu on it. You have to steal the scroll and learn a skill from it." That should get him to squirrel himself away, where Mizuki could take the scroll of forbidden jutsu away without anyone else finding him first. And if the brat managed to try any of the jutsu in the scroll, it would kill him from lack of chakra.

"I'm on it!" and the boy was off. The man grinned again, dispelled his clone and the genjutsu, and left to hunt down the boy's hideout. After all, how hard could it be for a chunin to find something a failed genin had hidden?

-X-

Naruto quickly leapt out of the Hokage's office, the scroll on his back. Years of practice had led to him being nearly impossible to catch even for ANBU, as long as he had a few seconds head start and was near an alley, which in Konoha covered nearly everywhere.

Something was definitely fishy. Mizuki normally hated him as much as, if not more than, the other teachers, except for the new Iruka who seemed to like him. Then again, Iruka also caught him after his pranks, which was quite annoying. But Mizuki didn't seem like someone who'd go out of their way to help Naruto, and yet here he'd apparently gotten special permission from the Hokage to let Naruto try a special exam to pass to Genin. The only explanation that made sense was that Mizuki wanted the scroll himself.

However, there was one upside to this. Naruto now had a really good reason for learning some kick-ass new jutsu from the stolen scroll, and when Mizuki came for it he could simply escape and return it to the Hokage, who'd probably kick Mizuki's butt so hard it separated from his body.

Naruto landed in his hidden den, checking his traps (some tin cans on a string) to see if anyone had disturbed them. It seemed he had a little time. Opening the scroll, he began to read the first jutsu.

-X-

As the tin cans jangled on their string, a cloud of smoke enveloped the open space. When the smoke cleared, a glance sufficed to see around a hundred kunai littering the ground. A single child was standing in the middle, clutching a scroll, while another scroll of equal size but sloppier writing was swiftly stowed in a disguised hole in the ground.

Iruka leapt down, landed in front of his most troublesome student and started yelling about how irresponsible, dangerous and downright stupid it was to steal a scroll of forbidden jutsu. Naruto, seeing an opportunity to 'accidentally' tell him the truth, looked up cheerfully and said "You can stop pretending, Mizuki's exam is already over! I got the scroll and learnt a jutsu."

Iruka's eyes widened. A sixth sense made him launch Naruto out of the way as a barrage of ninja weapons sped towards him. At the last moment, a cloud of smoke covered Naruto and he burst out, pulling Iruka away from the danger and taking his place. As the blades pierced him, he disappeared in another puff of smoke although his faint outline appeared in the first cloud.

"Wha-" Mizuki was interrupted by twenty of the kunai on the field transforming back into clones, who threw the other eighty throwing knives at him. He dodged most, blocked a few, and took some minor hits. His counter-volley took all the clones off their feet and dispelled them.

"That all you got?" he snarled at Naruto. "You know why you're hated, don't you?"

Iruka hurled a few knives at him, which he jumped over before continuing, a sneer on his face. "Even Iruka hates you!"

"Shut up!" Iruka yelled at him. He reached for his weapons pouch again.

"The villagers despise you because of a secret you can never know! The secret is this…"

"Stop talking!" Iruka charged forwards, a kunai in each hand. Naruto sat there, a burning need to know inside him. He was torn between wanting to stop the traitor, and finally finding out why he was so hated. Mizuki drew an oversized shuriken and whirled it through the air, preparing to launch.

"You are the kyuubi, the demon fox that attacked the village!"

Naruto sat there stunned, but as Mizuki launched the shuriken at him, on a course that would take it away from Iruka and possible rescue, the kunai around him turned into shadow clones of Naruto. One kicked the shuriken away, while the rest pounded the traitor into the dirt. Iruka leapt onto him, delivering a knockout blow to his temple.

Iruka turned to him as the clones dispelled in a large cloud of smoke. "You're not a demon. You are a child without parents, and yet you're becoming a talented ninja. You didn't pass this year, but with this jutsu there is no way you won't succeed for the next exams. Now come on, let's get some ramen."

A/N: This is only my second fanfic and my first try at a Naruto one. Reviews are very welcome, please let me know whether you like the intro and what you think of my writing style. There will probably be an arc of another 2-3 chapters before the next exams, where Naruto will become a genin and the spandex fun will begin.

23/07/15: I'm going through this story again, tidying it up a bit and continuing where I left off. I'm removing some of the older A/Ns as well. There won't be changes to the actual content of the story, just small grammar and consistency fixes.

16/09/16: This story has been discontinued for a while now. I'm working on a (hopefully) better fic called 'Spire', which is visible on my profile, but I might try to rework this into something half decent at some point in the future. As of now, I have no plans to do anything with it at all.