It was a beautiful day in the Konoha village, mothers were out shopping and gossiping away with the neighbors about who has done what and who had done where. Men were busy chatting away about long forgotten times and childeren were at school; except for one. Naruto was rushing down the busy streets dodging people as he ran by, sparing a glimpse behind him every couple of seconds to see if anyone was following him. To his dissapointment, no one was behind him, no one was even sparing him a glance as he ran down the street towards the Hokage's monument plastered on the mountain behind the Hokage's office. Naruto had a wicked plan that would definately get him some attenttion. He runs by carrying a couple of paint cans and a brush, making sure not to tip or bump the can. When he arrived he glanced around before he began working on the tireing climb up the hill.
"I wonder if Iruka-sensei has noticed that I'm not there" he ponders to himself as he ascends the mountain.
Once he has climbed to the top, he ties his rope to a nearby rock and repels down to the Kage's faces. Starting with the first Hokage, Naruto gets out his paints and begins to ruin the Hokage's images one by one. By the time he has finsihed his masterpiece it was noon and he stomach was complaining about the lack of food in him. Naruto ignore's his complaing stomach and climbs onto the fourth hokage's head, looking at the village and its bustling life.
"This will deffinately get me noticed" Naruto thought encouragingly.
"Time passed by and soon one o'clock rolled around anoucing lunch time to be over and for everyone to get back to work. Naruto sighed sadly, an hour and no one has come out to yell at him or to tell him to get down and pa respect to the previous Hokage. Naruto hugs his knees tightly and rests his head in the niche it made./p
"Why won't anyone notice me?"
Feeling defeated, he sighed and stood up, climbing back up the mountain. He unhooked his rope and decided to skip school that day and head to the library instead to relax and feel better. Unlike the popular belief, Naruto was acutally smarter than others assumed he was. He only acted stupid to gain attention, though that gig seemed to get boring rather quickly. Naruto still hid his cleverness though, thinking it would be a good asset to surprise someone with.
Naruto attened school often, although sometime he would skip it to go to the library or practice on his own sometimes when he thought it was pointless being at school. He didn't have any friends or acquaintances at school or in the village, as well as any relitves or clansmins. He dreaded going back to an empty house so he stayed out late often walking around the village under the street lights. Since he was still in school and had yet to aquire a team to go on missions, some of the village's money goes to his living and eating expenses. Though it is few, Naruto finds a way to steal some grub every now and then, hoping for the attention as well as the constant grumbling of his stomach to stop. Naruto walks down the street to the library imagining what his next meal will be when all of the sudden he was shoved down by some kids running by. He falls forward cathcing him self on his knees and hands, sucking his teeth at the slight pain from scratching them against the ground. The kids just run on by as if they didn't hit anything at all. Naruto picks himself up and wipes off the dirt, sighing at the slightly oozing scarcthes and bruises. More to his collection. He wipes his hands on his pants and continuse walking to the library.
When he arrives the place is almost empty except for a couple of stragglers. Naruto heads to the sections ninjas use to study about their chakra and some moves he could possibly learn. Recently he has been stumped on the bushin no jutsu which he need to learn in order to graduate. He goes through many scroll, learning about many things except how to properly do the jutsu; however none of the scrolls help him understand the genjutsu. Naruto sighs angrily and returns the mountain of text back to their rightful place. There is only one place left he can think of to lool for help by himself. He gets up and heads out the library.
"He shouldn't be there at this time of day."
Naruto arrives unnoticed at the Third hokage's house, stopping a couple of feet away from it to scout for guards or passerbys. He heads around to where he knew the Third kept his scrolls and books. Naruto hops up onto the window, his heart pounding as he fiddles with the window to unlock it. His sense heighten as he calms down and masks his chakra. He opens the window and enter the darken room. He grabs some gloves from his pocket and puts them on, careful not to leave and tracks as he makes his way towards the shelf filled with scrolls of mysterious content. He scans them until he finds the one he is looking for and gently picks it from its perch. He sits down on the floor and opens it, finding the kagebushin no jutsu to be written first in the scroll. He sits there and reads the scroll, jotting down what he reads onto some paper he brought along with. After he finished writning everything down, he looks at the clock hanging on the wall and decides it was best for him to leave. He gets up and gingerly places the scroll back in place, making sure it looked like it was in its original position before he arrived. He slinks over to the window and looks around before deciding to exit and lock the window, wiping the wood of the frame before he left. He ran into the woods until he found a nice area to practice the jutsu. He removed his gloves and began to work.
It was evening when Naruto felt he had mastered the technique. Feeling satisfied, exhausted and dirty, Naruto headed out of the forest and towards his crappy apartment. Once home, he turned around and locked the doors, heading straight to the kitchen. He b-lined towards the gas stove and quickly lit it, removing the paper with his notes on the jutsu. He hovered the paper over the fire until it lit, which he then threw into a metal bin and watched as it quickly dissolves into ashes. Satisfied and relieved, Naruto headed to the bathroom to take a quick shower. Once out he cooked some ramen and read some scrolls to review himself for the graduation test tomorrow. He couldn't wait to get a mission and get out of the village, though it would take some time before that would ever happen. After eating and review, he cleaned up and got ready for bed, setting his alarm real early and went to sleep, dreaming of being surrounded by friends and family.
Naruto woke up to his alarm, wiping his dampened cheeks.
"Did I cry last night? oh well, it doesn't matter" he thought as he got up to prepare for the day.
Lately Naruto woke up realy early in the morning to arrive to school before anyone else so as not to get shoved or bully all the time and to have some time to catch up on any lessons he has missed.
"At least the bulling is some kind of attention" thought Naruto.
He quicky gets ready, ignoring his wounds from the previous day and makes a quick breakfast of stale bread. He quickly eats it and heads on out, locking the door on his way.
The walk to school was nice and peaceful in the early morning breeze and dim sunlight. Naruto enjoyed these walks; enjoyed taking in the beauty of the sunrise and taking his time to walk rather than rushing the crowd. He arrives at the school and unlocks the door with some ticks he has figured out. He smiles as he remembers the first time his snuck in early.
"Iruka-sensei was so shocked I got in without a key or breaking the lock" he thought chuckling slightly. "Though I did get scolded for coming in that early."
Naruto continued to do it to see if he could get a reaction out of Iruka but eventually, Iruka stopped to care since Naruto never did anything to the school or the classroom. Naruto sighs and closes the door,locking it again. He heads into his classroom and sits at his spot, looking around the empty room.
"Soon it will be filled" he thought saddly, laying his head down on the table and closing his eyes, slowly drifting off to sleep.
A clouded night sky and a blood moon all blurred his vision, something giant and orange with red eyes obscured the view of the sky; it seemed troubles as it was thrashing around a raising its head. Naruto looks lower and sees two blurred faces, one with red and one with yellow hair. He can't hear what they are saying but something tells him it's important. The faces appear to smile and his heart tugs and his chest becomes heavy. Why does he feel like this? Who are these people? he thought. He hears his name being called in the distance, a familiar voice he recognizes as it become louder. He tries to reach out at the blurred faces but is pulled away until he can see nothing but blackness. A deep and growling voice resounds in his head before he is pulled back to the world.
"Finally."
"Naruto!" Iruka yells.
Naruto jerks awake, sitting up and looking at Iruka, then around the room; still empty.
"Classes will be starting soon, since you are already here why don't you take the test early?" Iruka nonchalantly inquires.
"Sure, thank you."
Naruto gets up and follows Iruka to the testing room, looking at the table where the teachers will judge him. Iruka sits down in the middle and get out his clipboard, asking Naruto a series of questions on ninjutsu, taijutsu, genjutsu, and chakra. After Naruto passed the first portion of the test, they moved on to test some of his shuriken and kuni skills and finally, test him on his bushin no cloned himself perfectly into two other beings, surprising Iruka. After a couple of minutes of silence, Iruka speaks up.
"You passed..." Iruka said in bewilderment. He stared at Naruto in shock. "When did you learn all this?" he asked setting down his clipboard.
"I did it on my own my time" Naruto said slightly bashful.
Iruka is awe-strucked for a moment before he accepts Naruto's reply and hands him all of his necessary items in order for graduation.
"Congratulations on becoming a ninja" Iruka tells him, slightly smiling.
Naruto smiles back and bows, heading out of the room and back into the classroom. By now some early students have arrived and are waiting to be called into testing. Naruto slips into the somewhat noisy classroom and retrieves his stuff; however some jerks caught notice of the headband in his hands.
"What'cha got there loser?"
"Trying to steal your way to becoming a ninja?"
"Think someone dumb like you can pass?"
Before he knew it, Naruto was surrounded by some sniveling idiots who think they can one-up him.
"I really did pass guys, can't you just drop this and let me go? don't you guys have to do some last minute studying or something?" Naruto said, trying to get through them.
The bigger of the three pushed Naruto to the wall harshly, making a loud thud and causing Naruto to wince slightly.
"What makes you think you can talk to us like that?" the big one asks. trying to loom over Naruto.
Naruto looks him dead in the eye and sighs.
"Why even bother picking a fight with me?" he asks them.
"Just making sure you know your place runt" the big one says as the others nod and punch their own fists.
Naruto braces to be punched, seeing no reason to fight these idiots.
"What are you idiots doing?" a deep and incaring voice asks.
"S-sasuke! what do you want!?" one of them asks.
"For you digraces of ninjas to stop being so loud this early in the morning" Sasuke snarls.
"Damn, he doesn't pull punches" Naruto thougt watching him as he enters the room and stares coldly at the trio.
Some of the girls in the classroom snickers and whisper to each which seemed to make the boys calm down and back off.
"Trying to stay on the girl's good side I see" Naruto says, trying to edge the boys more.
They all clench there fists and send out threats to Naruto before they returned to their seats. Sasuke looks at the headband in Naruto's hands, then looks back at him.
"Congratulations" he says before walking off to his seat.
Naruto is taken aback by this.
"First he gets me out of trouble then he congratulates me? What an odd guy" Naruto thought as he left the classroom. "Guess he's not as stuck up as I thought he was" Naruto thinks as he leaves the building to go get his picture taken.
-meanwhile-
"Good Morning Sasuke" Sakura and Ino squeal excitedly at the same time, glaring each after.
Sasuke ignored them in favor of some quick reviewing, he knew he would pass, he wouldn't dishonor the Uchiha name. His mind trails off and soon he is thinking of his encounter with Naruto earlier.
"He looked skinnier than usual, wonder if he's alright" Sasuke thought.
It didn't surprise him that Naruto passed the test because for a long time now, Sasuke had kept an eye on Naruto to make sure he was okay. Sasuke couldn't bring up enough courage to confront Naruto though, so he watched his progress from the shadows and used Naruto as a rival to get better at being a ninja. He acted cool and cold hearted to keep others away from him and from his business. He hopes one day he can talk to Naruto and maybe even duel him without and restraints or with people watching them. Until then he'll watch Naruto, unoticed by the dobe and by the others surrounding them.