Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, Kishimoto does. I wish I do…
A/N: Hello! This is my first time writing Naruto fanfic. I've read quite a lot of stories, so I'm very excited that I can share my own imagination with you guys too. By the way, English isn't my first language, so there will be grammar or vocab errors. I hope you guys enjoy this story. Let's start, shall we?
Chapter 1:
Fire was providing light and warmth at night in a small clearing in the middle of a forest. A few tents were set up there to give temporary shelters for a group of bandits after a long day of raiding. Consisting of a few Genin led by a low-level Chunin, these rogue ninja had been robbing money, goods, and valuables from a small village in the northern part of the Land of Fire for a couple of days now. Even during time of peace, banditry still occurred, especially in the isolated regions of the country.
A Genin-turned-bandit was sitting on a log in front of the crackling fire, currently keeping watch over the night. Doing this is much better than going on some stupid dangerous missions. Why would I want to risk my life if I can get more from robbing in such a short time? He thought to himself before being interrupted by his fellow comrade coming to switch turn with him to keep watch.
"Hey, Hanji. Your turn's over. Go to your tent and get some rest. Tomorrow we are gonna go to another small village to rob some more goods." said a black short hair man after coming out of his tent.
"Alright, Kaji. Let me go piss first. 'Been sitting here for hours already." said Hanji stretching his body before walking a small distance away behind his tent. While doing his 'business', he was thinking about what he would do with those goods that he robbed. A few minutes later, Hanji walked back toward his tent. "Hey man, what are –?!" said Hanji before stopping in his track.
His eyes opened wide in shock. In front of him, there was the body of Kaji, a head-less one, lying in a pool of blood on the ground. Panicking, Hanji instinctively looked around and saw some of the tents were splashed with blood. Steam rose out from the other tents. To say he was slightly shocked was an extreme understatement. Shivers covered all over the ex-Genin's body as he started to shake tremendously at the sight before him. The fear of death had invaded his mind.
Suddenly, Hanji felt a terrible burn on the inside before looking down to see a hand which glowed bright orange had pushed its way through his heart out of his chest, like a knife through butter. He felt like it was absorbing his life force, which was true because heat began to leave his body. On his last breath, he saw the masked face of his murderer, and light blue ocean eyes through the holes on it before his world turned dark.
Pulling his hand off the body, the masked killer then cleaned himself off the blood and muttered to himself in disgust, "No matter how many times I've used that jutsu, I always feel sick in the stomach."
Meanwhile, another masked ninja went to collect the stolen valuables before sealing them into scrolls and putting them in his vest pockets. "You have to get used to that, Fox." said the shinobi with the scrolls with an eye-smile which was obviously hidden behind his mask by the way. Fox huffed and replied, "Easier said than done, Captain. You've been doing this sort of stuff longer than me."
The captain wearing a Dog mask just shrugged his shoulders before hopping on a tree branch, waiting for his partner to finish cleaning the site. Soon after, they left in the direction of the village hidden in the leaf.
Back in the center of Konohagakure no Sato, the fire shadow that was considered one of the most powerful shinobi, hailed as "God of Shinobi, was currently sitting behind his desk in his office, doing paperwork that dealt with matters around the whole village. Sarutobi Hiruzen, or the Professor, was an old man with dark brown eyes, grey hair and goatee. His face was gaunter, and he had wrinkles. Noticeably, there was a single line running vertically under the outer corners of each eye which stretched out into his face until they reached his cheeks. He usually wore his official Hokage attire – the customary hat and haori with a red, full-length kimono that was tied using a white sash. As he was doing his work, two familiar chakra signatures flickered near his desk. Hiruzen looked up to see a fox-masked and a dog-masked ANBU stood in front of him, indicating the assigned mission was done. The two ANBU wore the standard uniform, which consist of black clothing, a grey flak jacket, metal arm guards and gloves, ninja sandals with spikes for travelling into mountainous regions, three ninja pouches on their back-waist and a signature spiral tattoo on their shoulder. They each had a sword strapped to their backs. But the significant difference between them was that 'Dog' was a tall, slightly slender, but muscle toned man who had silver, gravity defying hair while 'Fox' was shorter and had sun-kissed blond hair with a light ocean blue pair of eyes. This signified that 'Fox' was definitely younger than his partner.
"Report." commanded the Sandaime. "Mission accomplished, Hokage-sama. After arriving at the destination …" accordingly explained the older ANBU the event happened hours ago.
"Good job, Dog, Fox. Your teamwork is exceptionally brilliant. I sure don't expect nothing less from my two elite personal ANBU." congratulated Sandaime while glancing at 'Fox' with a proud smile on his face.
"It was nothing, Hokage-sama. Not boasting, but they were weaker than we anticipated." replied 'Dog' humbly before bowing respectfully, of which action was mimicked by his partner.
"I know my subordinates' abilities clearly, so you should accept the praise. 'Fox', I want to have another word with you. 'Dog' you are dismissed." With that, the squad leader left after bowing once again to his Kage, leaving 'Fox' alone with the Sandaime.
"What is it that you want to tell me, Hokage-sama?" asked curiously the blond young ANBU.
"You can remove your mask now, Uzumaki Naruto." speak softly towards his surrogate grandson. Naruto obeyed by taking off his mask, revealing his round face, but surprisingly there was no baby fat considering his young age. The three whiskered marks on each of his cheeks also helped others to recognize him. Hiruzen walked from behind his desk to stand in front of the young boy. He then hugged his grandson, which action was returned back tenfold making the old man smiled happily once again. He remembered the time when young Naruto first learned how to walk, how to throw shuriken, learned his first jutsu, found out about his Kekkei Genkai etc. Especially when Naruto successfully created his very first original jutsu, he ran around the Sarutobi clan's compound yelling 'I'm so awesome!' for a whole day. –I'm certain that your parents are very proud of you once they see what you've achieved, Naruto.-
Sarutobi clan willingly adopted Naruto ever since that incident of the Kyuubi's attack. The Yondaime Hokage, Namikaze Minato and his wife, Uzumaki Kushina, and many other shinobi sacrificed their lives to stop the tailed beast from destroying their home village; thus preventing additional death in both shinobi and civilians' populace. The Yondaime performed a sealing kinjutsu to seal of half of the Kyuubi's chakra in himself, bringing it with him into the stomach of the Shinigami. His wife suffered heavy stress after giving birth and being forcefully extracted the bijuu from her seal, which ultimately killed her. Minato managed to seal the Yang half of Kyuubi's chakra into his own son as he hoped that Naruto would be able to continue his dream with the demon's power. He believed that Naruto was the child of prophecy whom Jiraiya, the toad sage, told him about. After arriving at the sealing sight, Sarutobi Hiruzen took the new born blond and promised the young one's parents that he would raise and protect Naruto by whatever means possible as a show of gratitude for the necessary sacrifices of his fellow shinobi.
"You have come so far, my boy. I am very proud to be your grandfather right now, so do your parents to have you as their son." said Hiruzen with the tune that grandfather would lovingly say to his grandson. Naruto smiled brightly at the praise he received. Even if he had become quite battle-hardened, he was still a young child who would still want acknowledgement for what he did. "Thank you, Jiji. I won't let you down. I will become the strongest shinobi so that I can protect my precious people like you and Kakashi-niisan and many others." replied our favorite brave blond with fire of determination in his eyes.
"I believe you will. Nonetheless, that doesn't mean that you should focus all of your time to train. Naruto-kun, you are still 11 years old. Yes, I admit that you are more mature than most kids of your age, but I want you to have a more pleasant childhood." said the old Hokage with a slight frown on his face.
"But I do have friends, Jiji. Aren't those ANBU-san counted in?" asked Naruto with confusion on why his Jiji suddenly talked about his current way of childhood.
"Yes, they are acquainted with you, but you need people your age around you. I want you to have fun, Naruto-kun. That's why I ask you to be here to discuss with what I want you to do from now on. Tomorrow is the first day of the final year for the academy class. I want to enroll you in that class for you to spend some quality time with kids among your age." suggested the Sandaime.
"Are you saying that you are going to demote me to Genin?!" asked the blond a little bit furiously after hearing that he would be graduating to be Genin.
"No! Naruto-kun, I don't mean like that. You know, I believe in your ability and care about you. The reason behind my decision is I don't want you to walk the similar path of your niisan, Kakashi. You see, he suffered mental breakdown after the death of his teammates and your father." he paused a little bit as he thought of his deceased successor, Namikaze Minato.
"He continued on his ANBU career which didn't make things any better until he met you, Naruto-kun. Kakashi didn't have a pleasant childhood as he was growing up during time of war, while you are in the time of peace. No reason to waste such precious time when you are still young. Plus, you can still train during your free time from the academy as I'm sure you won't have any trouble with the school work." said Hiruzen convincingly.
"Oh… Then I guess it won't hurt to have a little fun." Naruto gave a small smile to his surrogate grandfather, thankful of him for his care.
The grandfather figure grinned at his grandson by the idea of being able to save the young one's childhood. "Then I will arrange the file for you immediately. Alright, you can go get some rest now, my boy." replied as he went back to prepare the paperwork. "Oh, and don't forget to make some friends. You don't have to make a lot of friends, just few good ones is perfect." continued the old man before Naruto left.
"Yes, I will, Jiji. Thank you for the advice! See ya around!" Naruto grinned back at Hiruzen before he walked out of the Hokage office.
While making his way through the busy street, he was thinking about what to do tomorrow. Then a sound from inside his head made itself known, "The old man is right, kit. As much as I enjoy seeing my jailer spilt blood, you should stick around people your age. Seeing those weirdoes in the ANBU headquarter daily has become boring." said Naruto's tenant. Naruto and Kyuubi seemed to be on the neutral side with each other. While Kurama would ignore and scare the blond every now and then, he still had some respect for the kid, as going through killing and seeing blood since such young age was enough to explain.
"I don't know, Kurama. I pretty much haven't talked to any kids besides Konohamaru." replied Naruto. A few seconds of silence went by. "Kurama? You there? … Kurama?" Still no answer from the powerful bijuu.
Naruto face vaulted and stood still for a few seconds, attracting some people to look at him strangely. "Figured…" he sighed at the usual action from his tenant. Their conversation never lasted longer than a minute.
"You have no reason to be worry about such thing. Why should you care about what people think of you?" casually replied Kurama. This time it was Naruto who didn't answer, as he was considering Kurama's words. A moment later, he arrived at Sarutobi clan's compound after checking in at ANBU headquarter. He then greeted members in the house as they all had dinner together. Naruto excused himself to his room to take some rest after a long trip back nonstop. One last thought before sleep began to envelope him, -I hope everything will be interesting tomorrow. Oh well, Jiji told me to have fun. I should listen to him then.-
What will his decision affect his life later on? Let's find out in the next chapter.
That's it for this new story. What do you think? Leave a comment or review on this. I welcome every opinion from you guys. See ya next time! Peace!