Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.
Scholar in the Shadows:
Prologue
It was time for him to start the Academy. As any child at the age of six would be, he was very, very nervous. Despite the fact that he was going to be a part of an entirely new community, well, sort of, but he was nervous about how everyone would react to him. The villagers were pretty mean to him, for reasons currently unknown. He never recalled doing anything bad to them, except for maybe sneaking around trying to stay out of their way. Thankfully, they had never tried to kill him, or do anything violent to him for that matter. The worst that they did was overcharge him for everything, insult him, and keep their kids away from him.
He slowly walked up to the Academy building, clutching a piece of paper in his hands that told him where in the building to go. However, as he was a small boy of only six, the sprawling campus of the prestigious Konoha Ninja Academy looked like an entirely new world, as it was. Although he could read, thanks to the pre-Academy classes that he had attended, he still had trouble locating room 155 of the Shodaime Building. Wishing that he did not have to do this, he approached one of the men that he had seen patrolling the area.
"Excuse me sir, but can you help me find my way to my classroom?"
The man kneeled down to the level of the young boy, taking quick notice of the three odd marks on the boy's cheeks. As a ninja, he knew that this boy was but a container, nothing more, and he did not let the prejudice of the villagers interfere with his judgement. Smiling at the boy, the man replied, "Certainly, kid. May I see your paper? Ah, 155 of the Shodaime Building, right this way."
The boy was surprised at the reaction that he received from the man. Not wanting to be left behind, he quickly followed the man to his final destination. All the while, he was looking around at his surroundings. The Academy was simply massive, even by an adult's standards. As he would eventually find out, there were some of the village's best training grounds on the campus, the most comprehensive library in the village, named after the Professor himself, Sarutobi, said to even rival that of the Hokage's own personal library, with subjects ranging from the most basic skills to some of the most advanced techniques bar those of the Forbidden Scroll of Seals.
It had numerous dormitories for the upperclassmen, and, in certain cases, those who did not have a proper home to go back to. Near the dorms were the cafeterias, as the amount of students and instructors at the Academy at one time was too great for one set of kitchen workers to handle. The buildings for the individual classrooms were split up first by year and then by subject, each named after either a famous ninja that pioneered the area that was covered in it, a generally famous ninja, or any person that donated a significant amount of money to the Academy. The founder of the Academy, the Shodai, got his name attached to the building for the first couple of years.
In the center of the Academy, or rather, what the Academy surrounded, was the bastion of the entire village, and the center of all ninja activity, the massive Hokage Tower. The reason for this was so that the Hokage could give out mock training missions once the students reached that level, and because many instructors rotated as staff of the tower, so in order to simplify some people's lives, the Academy was built around the Tower.
Back to the boy, after walking for about five minutes, the two reached their goal of the Shodaime Building. Entering the building, the man led him down some hallways to his final destination, room 155. Bidding him farewell, the man left the boy outside of the room. After standing in front of the door for a moment, he opened the door and walked in, greeted by the sound of many other children his age talking and chatting away. Nervously, he made his way to the back of the room and sat in a seat in the far corner. As he looked around, he saw some kids that he recognized somewhat, but other than that, he knew none of the kids that were in the classroom.
When it was drawing close to the time for the day to start, most of the kids started to settle down. The one kid that was sitting directly next to him introduced himself as Uchiha Sasuke. At precisely 8:30 AM, a bell rang out and the teacher called for silence and started to take attendance.
The boy zoned out while the teacher listed off the names, occasionally recognizing one of them, until the teacher reached his name.
"Uzumaki Naruto?"
Raising his hand, Naruto replied "Here."
His voice was loud enough to be heard by the teacher, and quiet enough to attract the attention of some of the other students. After role call was done, the teacher began to go over some of the stuff that they would be learning, such as basic mathematics, reading and writing, history, and some basic ninja skills and theories, such as the theory of chakra and how to throw kunai. That day, however, they would be spending time getting to know their way around the campus. They were organized into groups and some additional teachers came in to help chaperone.
They were all taken to the many different areas of the campus, such as the dorms, the cafeterias, the library, the Hokage Tower, some of the training grounds, and even the building that held the unique and famous Examination Chamber. Inside of the Chamber lie a certain device that decides where the future of a ninja lies. How it specifically works, no one person knows for sure, but what it essentially does is scans the person that is to be examined and, through various tests, figures out their chakra capacity, overall control, body type, chakra type, potential for growth, and then uses that data to plan what type of ninja the examinee should study as. This examination happens at the beginning of the students' 5th year, which is also the year when they would normally begin to live on campus, except for a few very special cases, as noted before.
The rest of the day was rather uneventful for Naruto, that is, until the end of class. It was then that he was told to stay after for a little bit. He was slightly confused as to why, but he listened anyways. When he asked why, he was told the following.
"The Hokage wishes to meet with you to discuss your housing conditions. He should be here shortly."
Feeling more confused, Naruto sat down and waited for the Sandaime Hokage to show up. A few minutes later, he arrived at the classroom. Naruto, having seen the man personally once a month, was confused as to why he would be here now, because he had gotten his allowance last week. Nevertheless, he greeted the Hokage warmly, albeit slightly disrespectfully.
"Konichi wa Hokage-jii-san," he said with a bow.
The Hokage smiled at Naruto, ruffling his hair a bit, making him grumble slightly.
"Why don't we go for a bit of a walk? I could use the fresh air after being in my office all day," the Hokage said as he made his way towards the door. Following quickly behind, Naruto had to walk fast to catch up to Sarutobi. After reveling in the fresh air for a bit, the Sandaime spoke. "Naruto, I assume that you are curious as to why I am talking with you, right?"
"Yes, a little bit jii-san."
"Well, as you know, there are dorms here on campus, and they are usually reserved for those who are at least in their fifth year here. However, there are exceptions. That being so, when ever a child has no real home to return to, we usually allow them to stay here, with all of the privileges of and upperclassmen, except for access to the weapons locker, at least until you start that kind of training in your classes. So, what do you think Naruto?"
"I think that I'll do it jii-san!" Naruto replied enthusiastically.
"Good, good. Now then, I will send over some people to gather your things from your apartment. Once they arrive here, they will put it into your room, and then get you from where ever you are and show it to you. Now then, go off and have some fun around the campus," Sarutobi urged. Naruto nodded and decided to go to the Library, because ever since he had to start living on his own, he needed to learn how things worked, and once you start the thirst for knowledge, its usually very hard to stop.
The Library itself was a massive building. Had a total area of about six football fields per floor, and went up for six tories and had a basement where all of the very, very old scrolls were kept, due to their fragility. It was so huge because it contained not only ninja techniques and the like, but also more mundane things, like cooking, flower arranging, and religion. There was even a curious little book on a religion following a god named Jashin, but thats not important now. If you wanted to learn about anything, the Sarutobi Library of Konoha is where you went. It was only rivaled by the Hokage's personal library, and that was only in ninja techniques, nothing else.
When Naruto entered through the doors, he stopped and stared at the size of the building, which is absolutely understandable. Jaw hanging low, he absent-mind-idly ran into a wall when walking forward. Whilst he was rubbing his head, the head librarian came over to him. The head librarian was in her late thirties, and a smart woman. She actually had helped to redo the categorizing system of the library so as to make finding books and scrolls more efficient for finding them by hand. However, she had recently finished something that would redefine how people experienced going to the library.
With the help of a seal master, she managed to created a search system, where at certain terminals, a person would write down a subject, and then a list would appear, from which they could then select using a special pen, which would transport the books and/or scrolls to them. It was extremely complex, and as such had taken almost ten straight years of research and development to complete.
Back with Naruto, the librarian approached him and asked, "Is there anything that you need help with young man?"
"Oh, um, I don't know. I was just gonna find something to read before the chuunin came back with my stuff," Naruto replied, looking towards his feet.
"I can help you with that. My name is Kara, I'm the head librarian here. Now, if you'll just follow me, I'm sure that we can find you something to read," Kara said, smiling kindly at Naruto. "Now, the layout of the Library is rather simple. Here on the first floor is stuff for everyday life. The second floor is dedicated to all sorts of religions and their many manuscripts and theories. The third floor is for specific skill trades, such as smithing and seal making. The fourth, fifth, and sixth floors are all dedicated to everything pertaining to ninja, from ninjutsu and genjutsu, to stealth and how to throw a kunai to make it curve so as to kill an enemy that is hiding behind a tree. In the basement, there are ancient books and scrolls found in and around the Fire Country that we are preserving and, if necessary, translating. But anyways, the children's section is over this way, follow me."
Kara then began to walk towards the closest section of the Library. when Naruto stopped her.
"Actually, I'm more interested in learning about the ninja techniques ma'am," he said, looking her straight in the eye. "I want to try and get ahead of the rest of my class so I can be the best ninja ever!"
Smiling, Kara nodded, and began to lead him up the stairs towards the top three floors. Once there, he began to read about the ninja code, and how it was imperative to hide your true motives. He took this to heart.
And so it began...