Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto

Some stories start off with a child running down a street, trying to escape an angry mob. Some tell the story of a great demon that attacked a village, and of the story of it's fall. Others opt to write about a young ostracized child walking in on a tomb of untold knowledge. This is not one of those stories, this story starts a bit different.

"This is bullshit!" yelled a young blonde haired child as he backhanded his bowl of ramen to the side all the while glaring at the old man next to him. The said old man had a deepened frown, most likely from the recent language used by the boy, but he couldn't blame him.

"For years these teachers have stunted my growth and you know it!" he began, "I came to you every day after school having to ask you to explain even the littlest of things to me. Honestly what shinobi in training doesn't know how to draw on chakra two years into the academy? Especially when you say I have 'Oh so much" of it?'" the boy could only growl as he ran a hand through his hair doing his best to take in the news the old man had just told him.

The old man, and leader of the village Sarutobi Hiruzen sighed and gave the young girl working the ramen stand an apologetic look and asked her for a few moments of privacy before turning to the boy and saying, "Yes Naruto I do know what you are talking about, and I am sorry for what has happened to you. I knew that they may have been neglecting you a bit, but I did not know it was that bad until it was too late. However remember Naruto, didn't I tell you to only try to graduate the academy when you knew you were ready? Yet you went behind my back for the past two years and tried to test out of the academy."

Naruto frowned and looked down at his hands, "I could be ready if I was given proper teaching old man. You say you knew about them doing this to me, but still nothing has been done. You still let them make a fool of me in front of my class, all the while they hide behind their position of power over me."

Sarutobi took a drag of his pipe that he always kept on him, "You may be right Naruto. However you must realize that as much as I love and care about your progress, until I find suitable replacements for the teaching positions I would need to replace, which in your case is nearly all of them. I have to let them continue teaching. Remember Naruto, I am not the only one to blame for your lack of success thus far. Do your teachers have a hand in it? Yes of course. However you spending your time pulling pranks around the village rather then studying to become a better ninja doesn't help your case. Have you even visited the libra-"

Naruto rubbed his head in frustration, "Yes of course I have! You didn't think I tried to do that before I started pulling pranks! The moment I get into the library I get ushered out by the librarian, who says she doesn't want me in there. She says I am too loud, even though I haven't even said a word."

Sarutobi once again frowned, he didn't want to have all of the blame for the situation placed on him. However the way things were adding up, there really was no way for Naruto to progress as a ninja. Much to his displeasure, people in the village wouldn't give the boy the time of day. He knew Naruto wanted to be successful, however trying to be successful when one doesn't even know where to start was a problem. Every other student in the academy had the option to go to the library in their free time and look at the simple D-rank jutsus in the library, and books on chakra control. Naruto however didn't seem to have that privilege. The only option for him to be able to even remotely try and practice would be taijutsu. The problem with trying to practice taijutsu was if you are practicing it in your own time without a reference and start to learn a style wrong, and develop muscle memory for the incorrect use of a fighting stance or style, suddenly any training you are doing is no longer productive, but counter productive.

However Sarutobi had found a way around this problem quite easily now. While he could not find a complete new set of academy teachers that were unbiased towards Naruto, he could probably find a couple, and then fire the person in charge of the shinobi section of the library. He already knew someone who would be more than willing to fill in for the person he fired at the library. She had been wanting to quit active duty as a shinobi for at least eight years now. However she was just too useful in her shinobi position. Yet... with Uchiha Itachi reaching the rank of Anbu Captain recently, the change shouldn't be an issue.

All throughout Sarutobi's train of thought, he had been zoned out thinking to himself. However the few choice words he zoned back into caused him to see Naruto in a different light. It reminded him of his student.

"You trusted them blindly to adequately teach the students of the academy, to teach me. Yet despite me telling you that they weren't doing their job, their lies had blinded you. However I will figure out how to change things, they thought they were keeping me in the dark resting in that teacher position, that cradle of power. However I will show them that they were deceived." Naruto said as he looked down at his hands in his lap, squeezing his black overalls that hung on his body.

Sarutobi paused for a moment as he looked at Naruto, for once in a long time feeling his old age. He was no longer worried about Naruto receiving adequate training, he was more worried about Naruto following the road less traveled, the road that his former student followed. He coughed lightly into his left hand before laying his right on Naruto's shoulder, "Naruto I will do my best to correct your training. As such, go to the library tomorrow after school, I will place someone in there who can help you out. After that feel free to go there as much as you want to catch up on your work. I believe in you Naruto, I know you can become the rookie of the year if you put your mind to it.

Naruto looked at the old man with a weak smile, "I hope so. Like you said, if I fail one more time, I'm kicked out of the academy, by law."

Sarutobi could do nothing by lightly squeeze Naruto's shoulder and say, "Like I said Naruto, train hard, I believe in you. Believe me, I am a good judge of talent." he said with a small smile, which Naruto returned.

Soon enough the two cleaned up the light mess at the ramen stand, and apologized before parting their separate ways.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Death, it was inevitable, completely inescapable. It is of rare occasion where someone stalls death, evades him. People call this cheating death? However death can't be cheated, he never loses. Death had been around forever, far before the invention of chakra, far before the Sage of the Six Paths. He could of very well be around before even the creation of this world. The shinobi did not know. To see the world through Death's eyes would be to see a universe, one so vast as to be immeasurable and incomprehensible even to the shinobi's greatest minds.

However Death is not who we are here to talk about, we are here to talk about the woman that loosely evade death. Through the actions of a complaining child, she had been given, and took the opportunity that forever changed the time line, and instead of going on a suicide mission, that would bring her demise she instead ended up working at the northern library of Konoha next to the hospital.

Inuzuka Rin, in her own right an outcast. She was unique... in a bad way. She was the only one in her clan that had been unable to form any bond with the dogs of the Inuzuka compound. As such, she left. In the midst of a shinobi war, she had moved out and lived on her own. She became self sufficient and proficient in medical jutsu. She became one of the most, if not the most valuable medic of the shinobi war with Iwa for one simple reason. She was the medic for the son of White Fang and The Yellow Flash. Both of them forces to be reckoned with, however at the same time both wouldn't have been nearly as good without Rin by their side healing their wounds after each battle allowing them to stay on the move.

Rin sighed as she sat in her desk at the library, it was definitely a relaxing feeling going from an Anbu Captain to the relaxing confines of a library. As a child Rin loved books. Due to her situation at home, with her awkward standing in the Inuzuka clan, and not being accepted by the clan leader Tsume well, she didn't receive help from her family members. Not so much that they hated her, but what can a family that specializes in combat alongside animal companions do to help someone completely unable to form a bond with an animal companion? So as a child most of her knowledge and training was gained on her own terms through hours of research at the library. This contrasted her teammates quite amusingly when she could outsmart the son of the legendary White Fang or a member of the famed Uchiha Clan. She even taught the future Yondaime Hokage a thing or two.

Needless to say she was very book smart as a child, and her skill only grew as she gained more experience and was able to apply her knowledge to actual combat situations.

The academy had just let out and she was patiently awaiting the core part of the assignment, make sure Uzumaki Naruto isn't bothered while in the library, and help him if he has any questions. She had been informed of the young boy's training, and she was a bit disappointed. Not with the village but with herself. She had let her sensei's son down. However more importantly, she let Kushina down. She was likely going to become the godmother for Naruto. Despite Kushina and Tsunade's extremely close relationship, Tsunade refused to set foot in the village, and thus made her an illogical choice to become the boy's godmother.

Godmother? Godfather? The title left a bad taste in her mouth, and she never intended to mention it to Naruto. The fact that being his godmother was supposed to be her role in his life, a role that she had utterly forsaken in favor of burning herself out through mission after mission in Anbu after her sensei's death. She doubted that she would be able to look herself in the mirror if she insisted on calling herself his godmother after her utter failure the first six years of his life. She could only hope that Jiraiya wasn't foolish enough to come up to the boy claiming to be his godfather whenever he comes back to the village. She remembered how she felt about her mother trying to play that card with her.

She had moved out of her own house when she was eight years old, and by the time she was twelve, and completely self sufficient and living on her own, her biological mother butted into her life one day and forbid her from signing up for medical jutsu training, because she felt her daughter should of become a ninjutsu specialist despite not being there raising her. She learned quickly when she got onto her genin team that blood did not mean family, bonds and unbreakable friendships were the foundations of family.

She was brought out of her train of thought when she saw the young Uzumaki standing in front of her with a raised eyebrow. It was as if he was expecting her to screech and send him out.

She paused as she mulled it over.

'That actually probably is what he is expecting.' she thought to herself in silence before smiling at Naruto and asking, "Naruto right?" she questioned momentarily, and continued upon his nod, "Alright, my name is Rin, so you are here to catch up on the academy? In addition to learning more about what it takes to be a shinobi right Naruto?" she asked with a grin.

Naruto however was moderately surprised. It seemed that while the academy was still utter trash, when the old man said he would have something done, he would have it done. "Uhhh yeah?" he said not really sure of himself. He was still surprised about how kind the woman was being to him. It wasn't that the villagers beat the shit out of him or anything like that, however many didn't like him or didn't tolerate him. He imagined his pranks didn't help with the matter either.

Rin pursed her lips in amusement, she knew it wasn't his fault on the matter. However it was rather amusing seeing someone come to the library with no idea what they were looking for. At least from her perspective, being a girl that had gone to the library since she was little knowing exactly what she was going to read and what day she was going to do it. "Well how about you look around and find out what interests you Naruto. Feel free to ask me any questions you have about the subjects you pick out. However if they are above your skill level I will advise you to put them back, of course you don't have to listen to me. It is just that there are things that you should be looking for, such as chakra control, and the basic academy jutsus."

Awe would be an understatement of what the was currently feeling. He looked around the closed off section of the library specifically for shinobi and couldn't help but grin. Meeting a woman that actually tolerated having him around, at least currently, and being given near free reign of the library? Well he certainly felt like a kid in a candy store. So without any questions he darted off around the library picking up book after book from the shelves.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

To say Rin was impressed would be quite the understatement. She almost wanted to call the boy before her a genius. He had been in the library since 3:15 and it was reaching close to 9pm. Now normally the library closed around eight, but Rin was used to late nights as an Anbu. She wasn't looking forward to changing her entire sleep schedule around either. So she didn't mind staying around after hours, especially when the boy reminded her of herself in his current state. A young shinobi in training with no other options as to where they can learn how to be a shinobi throws themselves into books in search of knowledge.

Not to mention how much progress the boy had made, going from not even know how to control his chakra, much less barely even knowing what it was to performing an advanced version of the tree climbing exercise without even knowing it. She had seen him earlier reading about the tree climbing exercise, which in essence is using your bodies chakra to stick to the tree as you climb up it. However what Naruto did was he used his chakra to pick up a book without actually grabbing it. Then walking around the room with his arm directly in front of him holding out the book. In her opinion it was actually a harder exercise then tree climbing. This is due to the fact that when one performs the tree climbing exercise, its not like the tree is moving. So your foundation of the training is constant, and never changing. Eventually you can get the training from simple trial and error.

However with this exercise that Naruto had done, every step that he took, the book would always shake an undetermined amount, that could cause the book to fall from his grasp. However alas, after a few hours of referencing the detailed descriptions in the books that surrounded him, and trying the exercise, he eventually got it. She couldn't wait to see how much more Naruto would grow in this library, but alas all days have to come to an end.

"Alright Naruto it is after hours, I should start closing up the place." Rin said with a smile as she slid out of her seat behind a desk, which she had been sitting in nearly the entire day. Only to get up once or twice to go to the bathroom or get something to read herself.

Naruto however had other ideas, "Oh come on please, can I stay here. I am just getting a hang of all of this and making a lot of progress!" Naruto nearly whined.

Rin looked on in amusement, it wasn't like she had anything to do tomorrow but return her, and she was used to pulling all-nighters in her line of work. So Rin shrugged, "Fine, however this is a one time thing Naruto. I have to stay here as long as you do, so don't expect to have this happen again." she said in amusement as Naruto, like a child quietly said 'Yes!' under his breath at his table before turning about to a book.

Rin sighed as she flipped through the book on her table which was just the basics of nature manipulation, and the uses of water manipulation in medical ninjutsu. It was going to be a long night... but it wasn't going to be one that she minded.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

If someone had come up to her yesterday and told her she was about to witness a child train and study for eighteen hours straight, she would of laughed and called bullshit. However that was exactly what Uzumaki Naruto had just done. However it wasn't the length of time studying that surprised her. No it was the efficiency of how he studied. When people do something for extended periods of time consistently, they develop strategies to help them short cut and work around minor problems and time sinks in whatever activity it is they are doing. For example, a person is painting a fence, but after a few hours into the activity he finds a faster more efficient way to paint it, and reworks his method.

That was essentially what Naruto did the entire night, with his studies, with the basic academy jutsus. Now she had always believed that it would be utterly impossible for a student to just walk into the academy, and walk out as if it was a revolving door unless you were an Uchiha. She knew some of the world's greatest genius' in her shinobi career, and none of them had done that. However Naruto in a single night learned all three of the graduating exam techniques, all in a rather unique fashion too.

For the replacement jutsu, it came to Naruto just naturally. He had an entire library full of objects at his disposal. The basics behind the Kawarimi were simple, substitute your current place with an object through use of the Shunshin no Jutsu. Now Naruto initially was having trouble with the technique, because he didn't understand the Shunshin mechanic of the jutsu. However once he realized that the ability was just through the use of the universal speed technique used by shinobi, and then swapping places with an object on top of that. It was smooth sailing. He saw soon enough swapping places with every chair in the room.

However Naruto did find the jutsu a bit redundant. It the time it took for a person to replace themselves with an object, he could just as easily be behind the opponent by just using the Shunshin no Jutsu and stab his opponent in the back. However it was required, so he didn't think much more of it than that, it was something that needed to be done even if he didn't like it.

The next jutsu was the Henge. This one Naruto already knew the basics of it, because it was one of the ninjutsu he had been trying to get down the day he saw it in the academy. The students all had help trying to get the jutsu down. However once everyone, but Naruto had it down, the class moved on to target practice. So he developed his own version of a henge, one that in his own opinion was better. If he gave it a better name, and didn't call it the sexy no jutsu he could have an advanced, respectable henge on his hands.

The final jutsu, the one that had given Naruto by far the most trouble, the bunshin no jutsu, taking nearly three times as long as it took to get the Kawarimi down. However, in the end he got it down. He had spent hours doing everything right, but not getting anything more then clones that looked as if they were dying. However after banging his hands on the desk in frustration, Rin gave him a single sentence that was the answer to his problem. "If you are having too much trouble making so few clones, try and make more than just three at once."

The effect was instantaneous. However the sight of fifty illusions certainly surprised Rin. When she said try making more, she didn't expect the library to suddenly become filled.

In short once he had mastered those jutsu, he just started reading various books that Rin paid little attention to. The library was a place for knowledge, the more he gets, the better, regardless of the subjects.

So it was quite the surprise when she found out later that morning that Naruto had taken to learning nature manipulation, or more specifically, wind manipulation from a book. He had spent the night with just chakra and a single sheet of lined paper that had since gained several long clean and jagged cuts down the center of it.

Although, if Rin was asked the question "So what was the most interesting thing you learned about Uzumaki Naruto?" her answer would be simple. It wasn't the fact that he had made so much progress with his academy techniques, not to mention wind manipulation with no formal training. No those were impressive, not interesting. What was interesting was that when she asked Naruto why he was learning the wind element, he responded, "It's not just wind that I want to learn, it is merely the first I am trying to learn. This book says that children are born with an affinity, and then are capable of gaining other affinities if they practice with them as they grow older. The potential to gain these extra affinities also seemingly diminishes around age nine or ten, so I don't have a lot of time. However if I can gain a grasp on these affinities before then... well anything would be possible in my climb through the shinobi ranks." he finished with a grin.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

This story was mainly made out frustration with two things.

One was with the way another story on the site was going, I felt that it had lost its initial path and had since started running in circles in development some forty+ chapters into the story.

Also it is me trying to come back from my frustrating absence. If anyone had paid attention to me stories, you would have noticed that pretty much all story updates completely stopped near christmas. This was because I went through a lot of real life stuff, and in truth I couldn't get a break. It came to the point where writing was one of the last things I wanted to do, despite how fun I found it.

Now former readers of my stories may be asking, "Then why the hell are you making a new story and not working on your old ones man!"

The answer is simple. I feel that my writing skills have diminished with time, as I see in this chapter. I wouldn't want to come back from my absence giving everyone a long awaited chapter only for the chapter to be absolute trash.

Finally:

In most of my stories I usually give a list of things I intend to have happen, or my idea of where I want the story to go. That will not happen with this story. The only thing I can really tell you is that you should view the years of Naruto's life up until the story catches up to where Naruto would first join his canon team as one long, but interesting prologue. That however is where the real story will begin.

x

This is based off of LD 1449's challenge.

Quote: "Well the challenge was simple really, In my mind, Naruto and Orochimaru could share very startling similarities in their upbringings because of what Naruto is and how Orochimaru looked. Who's to say Orochimaru didn't want the title of Hokage for the same reason Naruto wants it, for acknowledgment.

So my question is just what would happen if Naruto was denied the title?

What would happen to him?

Would he become like Orochimaru. Possibly, in my mind very probably.

So the challenge is has it sounds. How would you best display the similarities between Naruto and Orochimaru and how very close he is to becoming the monster he hates."

x

So that is the basic concept of the story, similarities between Orochimaru and Naruto, and how other similarities could come up between the two. What would drive Naruto down that road less traveled.

edit: may 18, had to reupload the chapter for some reason because the site was saying that my story no longer existed O-o... So I replaced the old chapter with the this one, I hope it works.