Summary: Naruto is the ideal ninja. His existence is shown only through deception and secrets and he had a Kekkai-genkai never before seen. Will his seemingly perfect understanding of the world around him be the factor that creates the strongest ninja to ever exist or will it be his downfall.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

Enigma

by: Circean Shadow

Prologue: His Power, His Curse

The easiest way to describe 13 year-old Uzumaki Naruto would be to call him 'the ideal ninja.' If one knew him or had even seen him however, would have been able to argue rather well against this idea, however, that fact is exactly why its true. "A ninja must use deception," one of the most commonly quoted sentences in the academy, and it was so important that young Uzumaki had wrapped his whole existence around it, even before he had heard the phrase. In fact, it was even before it was known that Naruto could speak that the young boy had started to employ the technique.

Naruto seemed to have an intelligence far beyond that of a normal human. It was one of the very few things that Naruto couldn't understand. When he was just one year-old he had started being able to use chakra and while doing so he noticed the seal on his stomach. Later he would have described it as a kekkai-genkai, for that was the only way he could think to explain it. As soon as he saw the seal, his brain automatically brought all of the information about it to the front of his mind. In that split second he understood that he was a living container for the Kyuubi. With a glance at a jutsu or a description he automatically knew how much chakra it would require and how the chakra needed to be molded. As such, by the time he was three he already knew the three academy jutsu as well as the Shunshin no-jutsu, Kage Bunshin no-jutsu and a few other's used by the Anbu that would constantly tail him; and due to his humongous chakra reserves, created from the constant strain of keeping the Kyuubi chakra contained, could use them.

When he was finally six he asked the Hokage to be enrolled in the academy, but still he kept his skills hidden even becoming known as the class idiot and joker. Naruto understood the dangers that shinobi faced, himself in particular, and consciously made the decision to hide his real self from everyone. It wasn't that hard to do, he had no friends and the few kids that seemed to liked him were either too shy, quiet or lazy to come up to him and make themselves known. Naruto noticed them of course: The heiress of the Hyuuga clan, Hinata; the heir to the Nara clan, Shikamaru; and the heir to the Aburame clan, Shino.

After a full year of limited to no contact with the three other young academy students Naruto decided to take things into his own hands. He approached each of them talking to them and inviting them to eat lunch with him. They were all somewhat outcasts so his efforts went mostly unnoticed, and the people who did notice thought nothing of it. The four of them quickly became friends and Naruto opened up to them more than any other human, including the Hokage. Each of them knew his secret and none of them cared, as Naruto predicted it would be. Included in being able to analyze almost anything and understand it, was the ability to apply it to people. Of course Shino wouldn't care, he had bugs residing inside him and yet was he a bug? no. Shikamaru was too smart to believe that the Kyuubi had somehow reincarnated itself into the form of a young boy, and Hinata was too observant to not notice the seal on his stomach that signaled the separation between container and contained.

And Yet despite himself opening up to his three friends the still couldn't understand him. Hinata and Shino waited with patience, knowing that with time young Naruto would explain everything to them. Shikamaru, however, became increasingly frustrated as the little bits of Naruto's life they did find out about only showed more doors to questions needing to be answered. He was considered a genius by almost alls standards and was probably one of the laziest people alive, yet he too could get motivated, and the one thing that could get him motivated more than anything else would have to be an Enigma. And Naruto was by all means and Enigma.

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Shikamaru understood Naruto's power, and the curse of the Kyuubi that he carried, yet he couldn't understand Naruto himself. The boy had been constantly beaten and still was, yet he stayed silent and passive, which probably only made the beatings harder. Shikamaru knew that Naruto had the ability to get away from probably anyone excluding the Hokage and possibly Maito Gai, yet he didn't. He let himself be cut, burned, bruised and insulted and never said a word.

'Why?' Shikamaru wondered. He had come up with several theories but they just didn't make sense. Was Naruto so tuned to those around him that he completely understood the reasons people had for attacking him, and if so how could he be like that with no common reference point. He had lost his family without emotion, for he had not realized that he had lost them the day he was born, so how would he know the pain that people went through from losing a loved one?

The answer was quite simple, however, no-one except Naruto, not even the Genius Shikamaru could figure it out. Naruto knew how the people felt because he could, should he choose, read their minds. Of course, Naruto being the type of person he is never entered another's mind without due cause, especially not one of his friends. He had a desire for privacy, maintained through his secrecy and decided to give others the same courtesy. He had only broken this courtesy twice, the first time, quite by accident had suddenly started to hear things in the voice of someone he knew wasn't speaking at the time, it was then that he discovered his powers and vowed not to abuse them. The second time was during one of the attacks on him, he felt so strong an urge to understand why he was being beaten that he entered the mind of one of the people attacking him. The anguish... the pain, sorrow and rage that he felt in that person's mind had shocked him; he saw the man's wife die in a memory that was not his and felt the loss that the husband did at the time. Naruto cried that night, it was the first time that he had ever cried; even as a baby he was silent coming out and even when the Kyuubi had been sealed unwitting into his navel.