Instead of being sealed in Naruto, the demons soul was inadvertently separated from it's chakra and merged with the newborn baby Naruto's soul, essentially turning Naruto into the demon in a human body. The demon chakra was sealed as intended, but with no memories remaining from the demon.

This is my first try at fanfiction and will be somewhat AU - currently I have no plans for any specific pairings - Please note that some things will be Cannon, but others will be deliberately AU.

I personally feel that Naruto in cannon was very Neglected in basic needs and that the 3rd Hokage could have protected and provided Naruto far better than he did. I also feel that Kakashi got away with far too many things and compaired to other teachers for new Genin, was a neglectful, lazy, failure. And as for Sakura, I really don't see how she was top female ninja graduate, and she got away with far too many things.

I intend for Naruto to be average and reasonably aware of a bunch of things that he seemed to be ignorant of in Cannon, but still be pretending to be the Dobe as a learned self protective action.

I am working on three different Naruto AU with three different power/skill 'What if's'. So please don't hesitate to comment good or bad, but please don't flame, I'm Fragile :)

Prologue

Naruto always knew that he was different from other kids. If it wasn't the constant abuse that he had always endured since he could remember, it was the whispers that he wasn't meant to be able to hear. Whispers about him being a demon, whispers about a law made by Jiji-Hokage to not talk about Naruto being a demon, whispers about how he had the Kyuubi sealed in him. Whispers that he didn't really understand at all.

It wasn't until a week after Naruto had been kicked out of the Orphanage when he was seven that he overheard two drunk ninja's talking to each other about how the fourth Hokage had sealed the nine-tails into that demon brat that everything finally made almost complete sense. Except to Naruto, it didn't seem possible that an evil demon was sealed in him without him feeling something. He didn't feel evil, just angry and lonely.

When Jiji-Hokage came and gave him an apartment soon that event Naruto decided that he didn't quite trust him as much anymore, since before when previously when Naruto had asked Jiji why everyone hated him he had just said something complicated about how no one really understood how Naruto really was. Of course Naruto still liked and trusted Jiji-Hokage, but just not as much.

When Naruto first started the Academy a year later he was overjoyed and honestly tried his best, despite having trouble reading and writing at first since no one had ever bothered teaching him before. But after several months of getting zeroes on all his tests, even when he was sure he had gotten several answers on one test right, Naruto just gave up on trying to learn anything from any of the instructors.

Eventually Naruto realized that the better he thought he did, the worse his grades seemed to be, but when he slacked off his grades seemed to reflect how he actually performed. And so by the time the first year was completed, Naruto was the bottom of the class but still passing if just barely.

Naruto realized that if he wanted to become a ninja, he couldn't do well or else his teachers would fail him. Or he couldn't let anyone realized that he could do well if he wanted.

So Naruto crafted a Dobe mask, a mask that showed everyone what they wanted to see. But he began practicing, on his own, day and night, and reading anything he could scrounge up since any books or scrolls he was assigned mysteriously vanished or somehow were destroyed soon after he was given replacement.

And then came the third and final time he failed the graduation test, Naruto was so devastated that when Mizuki-Sensi told him about a 'special' last chance graduation test, Naruto ignored all the warning flags that his instincts threw up in desperation and did what his teacher said.