A/N: Sorry for the delay on fics.. and for starting a new one again. But my life has just been terrible recently. Onto the story!
An orange blur flew through the tree line near the edge of the boundaries of Konoha. The blur carried a large weight on his back in the form of a large scroll known only as the forbidden scroll of sealing.
The blur's real name was known by few, if any at all, as Naruto Uzumaki. He was "special".
But Naruto was no fool. Even in the face of deceit, a great shinobi's best honed weapon, he pushed through.
They thought they could get him to fail his "special" exam by putting out an obviously fake Scroll of Sealing in the hokage's office? Not likely!
Now it was his job to take this scroll to a secluded area and wait for Mizuki, after that he'll pass onto being a Genin of the village! A true hokage in-training!
He was very "special".
"What is this!"
The being in the orange monstrosity hollered out to the heavens, alerting all in proximity to his presence.
"This has to be a joke. None of this is readable! Grahh!" He continued screaming out.
It was true more-or-less. The scroll was covered by seemingly random lines and patterns of ink. The ink still looked fresh.
"This is stupid, why would someone keep this thing so well guarded." Naruto thought of what to do. Then smiled.
Naruto took a hand, and in his ever prankish manner smudged the line. And in the process he broke the line that kept his humanity and inner darkness separate, beginning a process that would fuse the two parts into one complete soul.
As this unnoticed process began, a far more noticeable event happened; a burst of energy shot out of the center of the scroll, thrusting the orange one onto his back, yards away.
This electricity arced out into the ground and ran throughout it for a few feet. But then it stopped.
It slowly receded and coalesced from foot to head into a single old looking, blue-gray being. This being looked around his local area, noticing that he was in a small clearing in the middle of some forest alone with a small child that was dressed in an odd orange jumpsuit.
He had seen stranger in his own time, all those eons ago when he could freely roam outside of that accursed sealing matrix.
Using the last of his dwindling energy, he walked over to the small, unconscious child. He then fell down, almost out of arm's reach. He began to struggle to lift his arm, reaching out for the child.
The environment was hostile to him, filled with an energy foreign to him, an energy that was almost attacking him as he lie there on the ground. It was certainly not any type of energy his own power was used to, it seemed that his own kind of energy didn't even exist anymore. And stemming from the lack of the sustenance the ancient energy would usually provide for his body, his life force was rapidly corroding.
The ancient being rasped out, "Grow strong child... Find happiness... Find care and affection. Be looked upon in wonder and amazement... Do things none other could do. Revel in their amazement. And whether by fear or love, scare or care; I beg you to fulfill my dying wish. To grow and become what I could not – a god among men!"
He would pass on his greatness through this child, and create something more than himself!
With a touch on the child's heel, the being known as Maxwell "Electro" Dillon slowly vanished from this existence, leaving behind all that was him to a single child.
Naruto slowly woke up from his sleep. Wondering what had just happened, but before he could remember the events of moments ago, a figure showed up.
"It's all over..."
"Hehehehe" Naruto chuckled out.
"Huh?" Was the intellectual response of the figure, known as Iruka.
"Caught me already eh? You're fast, I didn't really have time to learn any techniques from the scroll. But it's full of stupid lines and stuff, I can't read it. But I still pass, right? I mean, the scroll was really hard to get and stuff, but not too hard! Just like, umm..."
Iruka didn't listen to the rest and only focused on a few key words. "Naruto, what do you mean pass?"
"Well, that's the special test right? For special people like me? Anyone, well special anyones, who learn a technique from the scroll of sealing in the hokage's office automatically pass the exam and become genin!"
"Who gave you that idea?"
"Mizuki! He told me where to find the scroll, though he was kind of off by a bit, and this place and how he would show up to grade me on my success! He said that he had confidence in me!"
'Mizuki?!' Iruka thought, before immediately noticing a sharp slicing sound through the air. Iruka pushed Naruto away from him then put his hands up as a feeble defense for the oncoming barrage of weaponry pelting him.
"I see you've found my little hideaway." Sneered Mizuki, who was atop the nearest tree, hunched over and with two fuuma shuriken on his back.
"So that's how it is, I should've known." Came the calmer reply of Iruka, who somehow only sustained a small leg injury from the bombardment of kunai.
"Naruto! Give me the scroll, now." Came the shout of Mizuki, still perched atop the tree.
Naruto was shocked, "W-wait a minute, what's going on here?"
"Naruto, don't let Mizuki get the scroll! It contains forbidden jutsu that could put this village in great danger. Mizuki used you to get the scroll for himself, for his own power."
Naruto just took on a shell-shocked appearance.
"Naruto, Iruka is just trying to scare you because he doesn't want you to have the scroll."
"Stop lying. Don't let Mizuki trick you Naruto."
Mizuki just let out a laugh, "Oh I will tell you who's really lying."
"No Mizuki!" Iruka let out in a hoarse, exaggerated voice.
"They've been lying to you your whole life Naruto. Since the decree twelve years ago."
"What d-decree?" Feebly replied the topic of interest.
"Everyone knows about it except you, Iruka is trying to hide it from you even now. He would do anything to shut me up." Iruka was oddly silent during this.
"What is this decree? Why does everyone know about it but me?"
"Don't tell him! It's forbidden!" Came out another large exaggerated yell from Iruka.
"The decree is: That no one can tell you that the Nine-Tailed Fox is inside you!" Rasped out Mizuki. "The beast that killed Iruka's parents, destroyed our village, has taken over your body. You are the Nine-Tailed Fox!"
"Stop it!" Yelled out Iruka.
"They've all been sneaking around and hiding things from you your whole life. Didn't you think it was strange how they treated you? Like dirt! Like they hated you for just being alive!"
Naruto's only response was to spout out his denial, "No! No, no, no, no!" His anger naturally forcing out chakra through his coils, creating an almost invisible, untouchable blue veil around him.
"That is why you will never be excepted into this village! Even your beloved Iruka hates your guts!"
Mizuki grabbed one of the oversized shuriken on his back, spun it in his hand then let it loose at the fox boy, "Die! Naruto!"
One moment, Naruto was almost in tears, crying out, clasping at grass on the ground, trying to find the mental stability he needed in the physical world, running from the spiraling weapon of death headed for him.
The next he heard a splatter of blood. Of Iruka's blood.
Turning to face up, Naruto saw the most beloved of his teachers, the liar...
Mizuki just snarled.
"I'm the same as you, when I lost my parent no one seemed to care. I just wanted them to see me, no one seemed to have time for me." Iruka began crying, "I've let you down Naruto, I wasn't there for you when I should've been, I should've taken better care of you. I should've helped you."
"Hehe, that's some great bonding you both have there. Mind if I cut in?" Another shuriken thrown at them, but something was off...
Iruka grabbed Naruto and tugged both himself and the orange one out of the way of the incoming projectile.
Iruka pulled out the shuriken in his back and tossed it weakly at Mizuki, easily allowing him to side step it.
With this opening, Naruto ran away into the forest.
And with that, episode one of Naruto continues as planned.
A silver haired Jonin entered an academy classroom, and was immediately assaulted by a – an eraser, "My first impression, you're boring."
The jonin smiled with his eye, "You passed."
"Yah! We did it!"
"Cha! Knew it all along."
"Hmp."
"Ugg, these D-ranked are killing me. Kakashi, when are we getting a C-ranked mission?"
"Hmm... I don't know, when you're ready."
"But the Hokage said that you decide when we're ready"
"Oh look at that, I'm going to be late for that appointment. See you."
"This, wretched human. This body, this mind, this disgusting theatre of humanity. It all sickens me. Every day, these weaklings look up and think they see nothing above them, believing themselves so high and mighty. Even now, my jailer allows himself to be thrown aside and put through these games, in ignorance he is trapped.
"No longer shall I lie and allow myself to be set in a cage that is itself caged in ignorance of the real world. Now the child shall learn, he shall learn of the power that the blue-one has granted him."
With this in mind, the great beast known as the Nine-Tailed Fox set to work preparing to teach its new pupil all the abilities now granted to him. Naruto would not be stupid any longer if the Nine-Tails had anything to say.
"Sasuke." Naruto looked down at the defeated form of his friend, his brother. He growled out in an even more animalistic way, "Sasuke..."
"People die in the ninja world, that is how things work. We are tools, we are meant to kill."
"I will kill you!"
'Stop. It is not worth it.'
'The hell it is!'
Naruto's world was flipped upside down as he saw no more. Dragged into the world of unconsciousness.
"Where am I..." Naruto lazily growled out.
"You are are in your mind, in the place where my consciousness rests."
"You... you must be the... the Nine-Tails?"
"Yes. And you must be stupid. Butpleasantries out of the way, we must move on."
"Wait. What about, umm... what was it? There was something important."
"If you cannot remember it, then it's of no consequence."
"What?"
"If you forget it, it doesn't matter."
"I guess. Hey, you're not all like wanting to kill me and stuff. Why's that?"
"I would be, but I had an epiphany. You are a kind of human that only comes around every couple hundred years, you have powers in you that only come every couple hundred thousand years, and you have a potential growth rate not seen in all of history. I would like to help train you to be more than what you are now."
"Really? Sweet! That is so cool! I'm going to be awesome!"
"The first step in training you, is clearing out your mind..."
Naruto awoke to a white room and the smell of antiseptics. 'A hospital' he'd concluded.
He stared out the window and realized that he was actually in Konoha now, how fortunate.
The door opened to reveal a doctor. "Ahh, Uzumaki. I see that you're awake. Good, I'll just be checking your diagnostics. You gave us quite the scare you know, many times you were on the brink of death. I hope you aren't too down at your first real mission, many ninjas when they go out on their first real mission collapse or get knocked-out. Some even die! You're actually one of the lucky ones in a situation like this."
It was official, this doctor was weird.
Naruto only had one real burning question though; "Why are you being so nice to me?"
"Why shouldn't I be? Your tummy?" The doctor laughed, "Us doctors often have to have some basic understanding of psychiatry, and you don't have the mentality of something that would destroy the whole village! No reason to be scared then." The doctor let off a disarming smile.
"Now lets get you all cleaned up..."
The door opened to reveal the nurse, "You have visitors Mr. Uzumaki. Approved by the Hokage himself for clearance."
The nurse left the door open, allowing the two teammates of his to enter the room, Sasuke and then Sakura.
Sakura cleared her throat then began, "So Naruto, how are you feeling?"
"Pretty good."
"Well that's good. What were you thinking going up against that ninja! He somehow took down Sasuke of all people! What were you planning on doing!"
Naruto was wide-eyed at the outburst of his pink-haired teammate. "I just wanted to help..."
"You only got in Sasuke's way! How could you do that! We're suppose to be a team; which means teamwork Naruto! You have to keep out of Sasuke's way!"
"Hmpf." Naruto believed that was Sasuke's grunt of acceptance.
"And then you were so weak that you forced us to carry you all the way back to Konoha!"
Naruto looked down at that, in a motion that implied he was sorry.
"But whatever, just know better for next time. We hope you can get out of here soon."
Sakura walked away, but stopped before leaving, obviously waiting for Sasuke.
"Were you scared Naruto? Scaredy-cat." Sasuke smirked at the grim look on Naruto's face, feeling it as a victory over the orange lover.
Sasuke and Sakura walked out of the room, closing the door on the way out.
Naruto just sighed and looked out the window.
"Mr. Uzumaki, the Hokage has allowed you another visitor. He also apologizes that he is incapable of coming at this time."
Out stepped Kakashi from the door, late as always with orange book in hand.
"Hey Naruto."
No response.
Kakashi sighed, "Look, while I'm not surprised you feinted during the mission Naruto. I have to say that I'm disappointed in your lack of ability and your inadequacy in the face of real opponents despite your boastfulness earlier in the mission."
Still nothing.
"Maybe you're not listening. But unless you're serious about being a ninja, do not show up to the next team meeting. If you do show up, you're a liability." Kakashi finished with a dreaded tone of warning.
Still nothing.
But this time Kakashi didn't care, he just left the room without another word.
After the door shut closed and Naruto was sure Kakashi wasn't coming back for any reason, Naruto faced the door.
He was hurt, scared, pained. He was angry, enraged, furious. But more than anything he was determined. Because now he had a goal, he knew exactly what to do and exactly who to trust.
He would show them all that he was strong. He would kill each and every single bug that dared cross him and say he was weak. Better yet! he would just kill them anyways!
Inside of the now demented child's stomach-mind, the Nine-Tails was grinning broadly. It couldn't have been happier.
Naruto chuckled quietly to himself, not desiring unwanted attention from doctors. He could feel it, the energy flowing through him. He could feel the energy of the world around him!
Note: "Energy of the world" is NOT chakra in the case of this fiction.