Disclaimer: Yeah I once owned Naruto. But it sucked ass when I did. I owned it from episode 135 to 220, explaining why they're so gay. But what I'm trying to say is that I don't own Naruto.

Note that this, although mostly alike, is a modified Naruto Universe. Also the title will make sense later on.

Italics Thoughts

Bold Inner Self Talking

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Naruto splashed water on his face. He was leaning down in his bathroom getting water from his sink. After waking up from the liquids he leaned back up and looked at his mirror. He stared at his seventeen year-old self looking for any errors in his appearance. He was shirtless and seemed to have grown significantly in the past couple years. He hasn't bothered to alter his appearance from since he returned to Konoha.

Although one may feel he has changed a lot regarding physical appearance. The first thing to be noticed of these is his height. After growing to 190 CM (around six feet and two inches) tall he is easily recognizable from a crowd because he towers over the normal Konoha resident. The second of these to be noticed would be his muscle size, which seems to have grown significantly due to his rapid burning of the massive amount of calories he gains from eating ramen constantly. Third, someone would notice he no longer had the Kyuubi influences on his physical appearance.

He no longer had the whisker-like marks on his cheeks, nor the seal on his stomach from Kyuubi being sealed in him. He started to think about the incident of why he no longer has those traits, and then interrupted the thought saying "No not now, at least wait until I get to the office". He threw on a black T-shirt, black pants and a dark orange cloak that he had been wearing ever since he was appointed as an ANBU squad commander He sighed and then left his apartment thinking "Dammit there's probably a shit load of defense paperwork concerning the chunin exams I have to fill out. That and I have to help Tsunade with judging the Chunin Exams. It's gonna be a long day.". The blond haired shinobi walked towards the ANBU HQ with minimal enthusiasm.

Naruto's footsteps were the only audible sound to him as he walked towards the ANBU stronghold. The sky was still slightly dark and the sun was just starting to rise. Naruto guessed it was sometime around 6:00-6:30 AM. The silence and peace was broken by a morning labor unit of villagers sitting nearby Naruto shouted the words "Morning Tornado!" at Naruo with glee.

"Morning Tornado". Naruto expected these words. He heard the words "Morning Tornado" each morning. Considering the village put high respect towards him since the incident with Kyuubi he never felt comfortable when the villagers greeted him with these words. He felt odd because the villagers had hated and isolated him because he was the container of Kyuubi. He used to think that he would feel great if the village accepted them. Although now that they did he felt awkward from the vast change of his respect.

The word "tornado" was a reference to Naruto's S-rank title "The Tornado of Konoha". He earned this title from his most powerful jutsu, but that is another story. Today, he simply wanted to finish the daily routine, judging the Chunin Exams, and use what ever free time he'd have left to train.

"Naruto?". Naruto turned around and saw Sakura several feet behind him. He quickly said "Morning Sakura-Chan". The pink haired kunoichi smiled and asked "Mind if I walk with you?". Naruto nodded a "yes" in response, turned around and started walking again. Sakura walked up to Naruto's right and adjusted her pace to match Naruto's. Naruto and Sakura occasionally walked next to each other on the way to work. Naruto didn't seem to mind, he considered the the girl to be his closest friend.

"You're going to the Chunin Exams this afternoon, right?" asked Sakura. Naruto replied with a simple "yeah" and continued walking with the ANBU HQ not far away. Sakura, bothered by the un-enthusiasm asked in a playful tone "Come on, whatever happened to the energetic Naruto I knew all those years ago?". Naruto quickly thought "He's dead Sakura, he was a casualty in the war" but not wanting to bother Sakura he said "time changes people". Sakura nodded in understanding and the two arrived at their destination, the Konoha ANBU HQ.

Sakura stayed true to her old appearance, same clothes, same face, same short pink hair. She was slightly taller then most Konoha residents, although Naruto was still taller then her by several inches.

Sakura said "Bye Naruto" and quickly ran off to the new building attached to the HQ that was used for training. The Hokage had assigned her to training combat medic-nins, a new type of medic-nins that had exceptional expertise in medical skills and the ability to focus their chakra into strength like Sakura and Tsunade did.

Naruto, however, got his title from his efforts in the war. He was promoted to ANBU Squadron Leader when the new war started, and then he was appointed a marshal position called "Commander of all Konoha Shinobi Forces" so he could lead the assault on the Kirigakure. After he was successful and ended the war by killing the Mizukage in the attack he was permanently assigned to this position.

"Hey Naruto!". Naruto noticed the words and turned around to look down the hallway in the ANBU stronghold. He saw a fifteen year old ANBU Squad Commander run towards him. He responded saying "Hello Alex" and turned towards Squad Commander he knew very well. Alex ran up and said "Ready for the Chunin exams?!" in a voice that oozed enthusiasm and carried a particularly loud volume. Alex wore a grey ANBU uniform and had dark brown hair. He was short, around 152 CM (five feet tall). His eyes had large pupils and the iris were dark blue, like the ocean.

Flashback - It was one year ago. The sixteen-year-old Naruto sighed after hearing what happened. Apparently one of his teams failed their mission to capture the plans for an attack on the Fire Country. Apparently they had it but a rather clumsy young shinobi had dropped it. Knowing that the plans were crucial he had to confront the young shinobi. According to his ANBU records, his name was Alex. To Naruto, the name Alex sounded odd. It sounded foreign, not exactly extoic but still foreign. He sent an order to a nearby ANBU member outside of his tent to tell Alex that he commanded him to visit the commander tent.

Naruto was at an ANBU campsite in his commander tent. He had the ninja that was responsible for the mission's failure sitting down in a wooden chair facing him. Naruto, who was sitting in a wooden chair behind his desk decided to start the conversation. "So Alex, why exactly did you fail the mission?" The fourteen-year-old ANBU member Alex then responded in a nervous voice "My team leader was knocked unconscious so I had to leave the plans and save him instead. I'm sorry...". Alex was almost sure the legendary squad commander in front of him would tear him apart for not following orders. But Naruto responded completely differently. Naruto's next words were "Which is why I'm assigning you as team leader".

"What?" said Alex, who was clearly dumbfounded by the comment. He was almost certain that he was going to be sent home and kicked from ANBU. Well the "sent home" part didn't seem so bad, but he was glad anyway when Naruto said he was going to stay, let alone be promoted. After some stutters Alex managed to say the word "Why?".

"Because you kept your teammates alive" said Naruto. "And that is more important then simply completing the mission. For you may go on to become a great Shinobi that accomplished more missions then any other, but its merit is dwarfed by the importance of keeping your comrades alive. You can kill thousands of enemy lives, but it will never be as great as saving one." continued Naruto in a rather wise way.

End Flashback

And from that moment on the two had been good friends, going through war and getting out. After Naruto was promoted to Commander of All Shinobi Forces, he promoted Alex to squadron commander to lead his old squad.

"Naruto I'm sorry I can't chat but I gotta go finish up my paperwork" said the ANBU squad commander who quickly ran down the hallway behind Naruto. Nauto sighed and thought "Heh, he's like me two years ago". He walked down the hallway that Alex came from and thought about his own paperwork. He then suddenly thought about the incident with Kyuubi that he avoided earlier...

So yeah, first fan fiction. Read and review!

Update (June 1, 2007): I've revised this a bit to add some more detail.