Chapter 1
Summary: Kushina Uzumaki survived the fateful night of the Nine-Tails' attack, albeit barely. Fifteen years later she wakes up, is reunited with her now teenaged son, and develops feelings for him that a mother should not have. What happens when the Red Hot-Blooded Habanero accidentally gets her hands on The Mask and what will she have in store for Naruto and Konoha? Who knows, but whatever it is, one thing is for certain: she'll look damn good doing whatever it is!
Credit to my helper/co-author, ncpfan, for helping me out with this story.
This chapter is part of the prologue for this story. The prologue consists of three chapters and although not the most exciting part of the story, it lays the foundations by establishing the differences between the story and canon. The rest of the prologue will be up later this week. By the end of the prologue, you'll have a taste of what's coming though. With that said, enjoy the story and let me know what you think of it!
Start of Chapter
Along the outskirts of Konoha, lay a temple that belonged to the Uzumaki clan – a temple where they had stored a myriad of masks. Inside the temple, a couple of caretakers were tending to the building and its contents.
Unbeknownst to either of them, a dimensional rift appeared in one of the temple's storerooms and a few moments later, a strange object fell out of it before the rift closed up again.
As one of the caretakers was cleaning the floor of the storerooms, her eye suddenly fell on a wooden object. Picking it up, she noticed it was a mask – a wooden mask that featured an iron band from the top of the mask down to where the nose should be.
"Momiji? Have you ever seen this mask here before?" the caretaker asked her fellow caretaker, getting Momiji's undivided attention as she stopped dusting off the oni mask in her hands.
"Hmm? Let me take a look…" Momiji said as she took a look at the strange mask, "Sorry Kureha, I have never seen this mask before. It must be one of the masks the Uzumaki brought to the temple recently, but still…it's strange that this one looks so different."
Kureha just shrugged her shoulders. "Guess it doesn't matter then. I'll just place it with the other masks," she said before placing the mask on one of the shelves in the storeroom where she found it.
"There, that takes care of that. All tidy and neat, but it's out of sight so the view isn't spoiled by one mask sticking out like a sore nail," a satisfied Kureha said, to which Momiji nodded in agreement.
"Yep, now let's get back to work. I don't want to miss dinner like the last time we got sidetracked, you know?" Momiji dryly said, prompting Kureha to quickly nod her head before getting back to what they were doing.
Neither of them realized that the mask they just stored away wasn't brought here by the Uzumaki clan, but was ejected through a dimensional rift in an attempt from one certain Stanley Ipkiss to permanently dispose of this particular mask. They were ignorant of the power the mask conained – power that would someday shake the foundations of Konoha and the rest of the Elemental Nations. But until then, nobody would ever pay the strange wooden mask any attention and nobody would wear it for years to come…
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It was over. Konoha was safe, and the Nine-Tails has been successfully resealed. Kushina Uzumaki was so tired, barely able to stay on her feet. She could feel consciousness leaving her as she collapsed to one knee. Glancing over to her husband, his vacant, glassy eyes told her all she needed to know – he was dead, his soul taken by the Shinigami. She glanced over to Naruto's tiny form, just a few short yards away, his fusses and cries moving her to action, despite her condition. Willing herself to remain conscious for just a little while longer, she fell to her hands and knees and attempted to crawl towards him.
The effort was grueling, her limbs growing heavier and heavier with each successive movement. It was only the thought of feeding her hungry little baby just once before she expired that kept her going. She felt more and more faint, her vision becoming blurred as color started to fade from her sight, but somehow she kept crawling and dragging her body inch by agonizing inch towards her son. This was the scene that two men whom Kushina knew quite well arrived upon.
"Kushina!" yelled the voice of the older of the pair with relief and surprise.
"Hiru…zen…" she managed to croak out as he bent down towards her, "…can you…bring…my baby…to me?"
Hiruzen wasted no time, quickly fetching the newborn from within the sealing array where he was laying and bringing him to his mother, whom the younger of the pair, one Jiraiya of the Sannin, was holding in a sitting-up position and helping her to remove her shirt as she had directed.
"He's…hungry…" she gurgled out, clenching her eyes shut as a terrible shot of pain coursed its way from her back and stomach through the rest of her body, before she added with a weak, loving and sad smile, "…he needs…Mommy."
Jiraiya ripped the remainder of Kushina's top from her upper body, exposing her breasts to the night air while Hiruzen placed Naruto in her arms and helped her bring the babe to a nipple so that he could nurse.
Kushina's smile widened slightly as she felt her mammary being drained by her son, "At least…I got to…feed you…one time…my precious…Naru-chan."
Kushina's selfless devotion to her baby and her giving the remainder of her life energy into this single act of love moved both men to tears. Kushina's eyes rolled back and shut, her head lolling to the side as she finally lost consciousness. Hiruzen continued to hold Naruto to her breast as he was still suckling. Once Naruto was finished, he immediately fell asleep. Hiruzen laid the boy down on a soft patch of earth, protected only by the blanket he was swaddled in, before quickly returning to Jiraiya's side.
"Jiraiya! We have to keep her alive!"
Jiraiya looked at the man as if he was insane. There was no way she would even live through the night – her injuries from having the Nine-Tails ripped out of her and being impaled through her stomach were too grievous. He glanced over to Naruto's sleeping form. The poor boy was burdened to be a jinchuuriki and would be an orphan on top of that.
Jiraiya sadly shook his head, "It's no use, sensei. She won't make it."
"No, we can save her if we use seals to put her in a coma!"
"We don't have enough time, sensei! She'll die before we can complete any kind of sealing array!"
"Listen to me, boy!" Hiruzen fired back using the tone he used to use with his students when he was teaching them as genin, immediately causing Jiraiya to stiffen up and pay attention, "We seal her body in a scroll now so we can transport her to a secret facility that I have set up. We prepare temporary stasis tags that we immediately apply to her body once we unseal her body from the scroll. While the stasis tags do their work, we apply more permanent stasis seals to her body so that when we remove the tags, her remaining chakra will power the seals after we activate them. That will allow us to heal her injuries in safety so nobody can take advantage of her vulnerable state during that time!"
Jiraiya's eyes went wide as Hiruzen explained his plan to him. It was pretty unorthodox – and it was crazy enough that it just might work, especially given that Kushina was a full-blooded Uzumaki! He quickly nodded, pulled out a scroll and quickly painted a large storage seal on it. The moment he was finished, Hiruzen made a hand sign, and Kushina's body disappeared in a large puff of smoke, the seal on the scroll adding a kanji to show that it was filled.
Hiruzen collected Naruto from the ground as Jiraiya put the scroll back into the harness across his back. The two immediately fled the scene, Jiraiya following his old sensei back to his office, where he would learn of one of Konoha's most truly well-kept secrets…
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Sitting on a swing in one of Konoha's playgrounds was a six-year-old Naruto. He was bored, for he had nobody to play with. Looking around, his eyes fell on a group of boys around his age laughing and playing some kind of game with red rubber balls. They were throwing them at each other and it looked like fun!
'Maybe they would like to play with me!' he thought with childish eagerness as he got out of the swing and ran towards the children, wanting to join them.
"Hey! What game are you guys playing?" Naruto asked with excitement, catching the attention of the other children…and some of the nearby mothers who were watching their children play.
"Uhh…You don't know? It's called dodgeball," responded one of the boys, surprised that he didn't know what game they were playing – it was a popular game amongst children after all.
Naruto tiled his head and asked, "How does it work?"
"It's really simple," another boy answered and began to explain the rules, "You throw balls at the other team and try to hit them while trying to avoid getting hit yourself! If you hit them, they're out. But, if you throw it at the other team and they catch the ball, then YOU'RE out! Also, if you hit someone and another person on their team catches the ball before it hits the ground, you're still out and the person that got hit is saved. But just because you're out doesn't mean you stop playing. Players who are out go out of bounds on the side of the other team, and they can still throw the balls at the other team to get them out. But the team that gets all the other team's members out is the winner!"
"Sounds fun! Can I play with you guys?" Naruto asked with hope and excitement.
The children looked at each and whispered some things to each other. Naruto couldn't make out what they were saying. He was about to ask what they were saying, but they stopped whispering and turned back towards him.
"Okay, you can join! The more people, the more fun!"
Naruto smiled happily and made a fist pump, "Awesome!"
Just as he was about to join the game, a shadow fell over him. Naruto turned around to see a group of women towering over him.
"What do YOU think you're doing near our children?!" the one of them sneered at Naruto with palpable disgust.
Naruto shrank under the glares that the women – most likely the mothers of these boys – were giving him.
"I-I just asked if I could play with them," Naruto stammered out, becoming nervous from the intimidating figures and glares of the women in front of him.
"Uhh…Mom? He was just going to play dodgeball with us," One of the boys, obviously confused by his mother's behavior, explained to her before she could respond to Naruto. All of the boys shared his confusion as they didn't understand what the problem was.
The boy's mother looked at her son, "Sweetie, you shouldn't play with this…thing," she answered to her son and pointed towards Naruto, "Nothing good comes from being around this scoundrel."
The boy as well as the other children just looked confused, "Why? I don't get it…"
"Just listen to me, Sweetie. Mommy knows best. Just stay away from him, okay?"
"Alright…" the boy conceded, still not really understanding what was so bad about this blonde-haired boy, and not liking what his mother said about him, but he would listen to his mother like any child would.
The other mothers followed the same example, telling their children to stay away from Naruto as well. They too just nodded and ran further into the playground, leaving Naruto behind with their mothers.
Naruto looked crestfallen. It was so unfair! He just wanted to play and make friends, but he never got to play with anybody. He was always alone for as far as he could remember and now some kids wanted to play with and this happens!
'Why? I just wanted to play and make friends," he objected, looking up towards the group of mothers with a hurt look on his face, only to be met with angry shouts as the mother's verbally tore into the poor child.
"Because you are nothing but trouble!"
"Stay away from our children!"
"Nobody wants someone like you around!"
"You don't belong here!"
"Leave our children alone!"
"They shouldn't let filth like you roam around!"
"How dare you try to corrupt our children!"
"We won't let you hurt our children!"
"STOP IT! I'M NOT FILTH AND I'M NOT TROUBLE!" Naruto yelled, hurt by the things the women were shouting at him.
"Yes, you are! You are a good-for-nothing troublemaker who nobody wants around! That's why you were surely abandoned!" one of the women said with a spiteful edge.
"No, that…that can't be true – my parents loved me!" Naruto denied, shaking his head. He closed his eyes as tears threatened to spill out because of all the cruel things these women were saying to him.
"Hah! You hear that? He thinks his parents loved HIM. Now, listen carefully, boy," the woman gleefully said as she saw Naruto being close to tears while spitting the word 'boy' out venomously, "NOBODY in this village wants you, NOBODY even likes you, let alone love you," she continued before finishing with a cruel smile, "Why would your parents be different? The truth is they hated you like everybody else, they probably wished you had never been born at all!"
Naruto couldn't hear any of this any longer. With tears streaming down his face, he turned around and ran away as fast as his little legs could carry him, leaving the group of cruel, short-sighted mothers behind. The mothers all watched as he ran off, smugly satisfied at having put the little wretch in his place.
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Hiruzen was not having a good day. He could swear that the stack of paperwork in front of him was somehow capable of casting the Shadow Clone Jutsu! There just seemed no end to it at times! How he cursed the fact Minato had died six years ago to stop the Nine-Tails as he was left behind to take up the position of Hokage once more lest his former teammate, Danzo, got his hands on the position. That particular thought made him shudder, considering his old friend's uncompromising militaristic ways.
After what he could only describe as a herculean effort, he finally managed to work his way through all the paperwork. Taking his first break since his workday started, he took out his glass orb to check up on how Naruto was doing. To this day, he had not been able to heal Kushina, and young Naruto had it very rough without a parent. He did all he could for the boy, even going as far as trying to be a grandfather-figure for the boy, but his own efforts were rendered less-effective by the constraints of time and of his work.
Oh, he was well aware of how intolerant the villagers were towards the poor boy. When he revealed Naruto's status as a jinchuuriki six years ago as per Minato's dying wish, the villagers demanded the boy's head. He had passed down a law that forbade anyone to speak of Naruto's burden. He had hoped this would at least keep the younger generation ignorant of Naruto's status as the Nine-Tails jinchuuriki, but it was no use as parents would ensure their children avoided the boy.
He smiled as he saw Naruto approach a group of children to play with through his trusty crystal ball. His smile quickly turned to a frown as the mothers of the children forbade them from playing with Naruto and told them to stay away from him before verbally tearing into the boy in a callous manner that left the boy running away in tears. What angered him the most was that he couldn't do anything about it for they did not break the law and, Hokage or not, he could not force people to change their views.
If Hiruzen thought his day couldn't get worse, then he was sorely mistaken. He kept watching as Naruto ran to the spot he would always go to when he felt sad: the Hokage Monument – on top of the Fourth Hokage's head to be specific.
'Moments like these make me wonder if the Will of Fire, the belief that the entire is like a large family unit, died out six years ago,' Hiruzen sadly thought as he watched the young youth bawl with heart-wrenching emotional pain. Then it happened; his eyes shot wide with worry and alarm as he noted the ominous red chakra that started bursting forth from Naruto's body.
"Tenzo!" A tiger-masked member of ANBU immediately leapt out of the shadow at the Hokage's command, kneeling before him and awaiting his command.
"Young Naruto has unconsciously tapped into his tenant's chakra! I need you to aid me in suppressing it before any damage is caused!" Hiruzen ordered before he and Tenzo made a tiger hand seal each before disappearing in a puff of smoke.
Moments later, both men appeared on top of the Hokage Monument, where Naruto laid on the ground, surrounded in a shroud of the Nine-Tails' red chakra, writhing in pain. Tenzo glanced at Hiruzen, who gave him brief nod. He knew what to do.
Tenzo quickly used the Kakuan Entering Society With Bliss-Bringing Hands Jutsu to produce the kanji for 'sit' on his palm and jumped towards Naruto, touching his chest with that palm before jumping back, a thick strand of chakra connecting him to Naruto. Slamming his other hand to the ground, he made ten wooden pillars spring up around Naruto in a circular formation.
Not wasting any time, Tenzo quickly began using the fabled technique of the First Hokage, Hashirama Senju, to suppress the Nine-Tails' chakra within the outlined area. The malevolent shroud of chakra slowly began to recede until it was completely gone, leaving an unconscious Naruto lying motionless on the ground.
"It is done," Tenzo remarked with notable relief.
"It is fortunate that we got here as quickly as we did. If the fox had managed to gain a hold of the boy through his emotional state…Kami knows what could have happened," Hiruzen solemnly said, drawing a questioning look from Tenzo.
"Lord Hokage, if I may ask, what do you mean by that? Is there a flaw in the seal?"
"No, nothing of the sort. The seal is fine. The problem lies in how the village treats the boy. I had hoped the law I passed with regards to his status as a jinchuuriki would at least ensure he would not be isolated from the younger generation…" Hiruzen began to explain, "…But it made little difference. Naruto tried to play with some children and was cruelly told off by a group of mothers. The things they said hurt the boy emotionally – enough for him to apparently tap into the Nine-Tails' chakra – and the rest is history."
"I see…"
"That said, I will have to schedule several meetings with Ibiki for the people responsible for putting the boy in this state – indirectly endangering the safety of Konoha…" Hiruzen stated with a steel edge to his voice that clearly belied that despite his old age, he was not to be crossed.
Hiruzen picked Naruto up and headed back for his office. Leaving him to rest there, he summoned several more ANBU and led them himself to the mothers who had caused Naruto such pain to place them under arrest…
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Naruto groggily opened his eyes and noticed that he was in the Hokage's office, with said Hokage sitting next to him.
"Ugh…Grandpa? What happened?" Naruto asked tiredly.
"You passed out, Naruto-kun. I'm glad to see you're alright."
Naruto's expression turned sour – more sour than any child should look, "Grandpa?"
"Hmm? Yes?"
"Why does everyone hate me?" Naruto asked, his voice low and trembling.
Hiruzen gave Naruto a pitying look, "Not everyone hates you, Naruto-kun. The villagers…they just refuse to get over their own problems," he said, trying to calm the boy down, but Kami knows when or if the villagers would ever put Nine-Tails' attack on the village behind them.
Naruto began to sob. "But it's not fair! What have I done wrong to them?! I never did anything and everybody hates me – even my parents do! They'll never accept me! It hurts so much! I…I wish I was never born! I hate this stupid village!" he shouted frantically between sobs.
Hiruzen looked alarmed. He knew Naruto was obviously feeling hurt, but this course of thought…this was worse than he anticipated. If he would not step in now, then things were bound to end in tragedy. At 'best', the boy would go insane like the Kazekage's youngest son had gone recently, or he would end up committing suicide, which would also mean the Nine-Tails would be back to finish what it had started years ago.
He could not allow either of these things to happen. He owed Minato and Kushina that much, and he owed Naruto far more than that. He had wanted to wait with what he had in mind until Naruto was older, but given the circumstances, he would have to take a risk and hope the boy would understand what he was about to tell him.
Hiruzen took a deep breath, before sternly addressing Naruto, "Naruto-kun? I wanted to wait until you were old enough to understand what I'm about to tell you before I explain more about the reason behind the villager's treatment of you and about your parents, but I need you to listen carefully to me. You have to promise me that you will NOT speak a word of ANYTHING I am going to tell you right now, at any time or for any reason. Can you promise me that?"
Naruto's head snapped up towards Hiruzen and he answered quickly, "Y-Yes, I promise! I won't tell a soul…" he was nodding his head all the while before he added, "…although I don't understand why."
"It's for your safety, Naruto-kun," Hiruzen explained in his 'professor' tone, "As you know, six years ago, the Nine-Tails attacked our village and was killed by the Fourth Hokage. That story is not entirely true though."
Naruto looked confused with his head tilted slightly, "Huh? What happened then and what does that have to do with me?"
"The Nine-Tails cannot be killed. Indeed, it was defeated. The Fourth Hokage defeated it by sealing it away…into a newborn baby. That baby was you."
Horror was written over Naruto's face as Hiruzen dropped the bomb on him. "Y-You mean everybody hates me because I'm a…monster?" Naruto asked with a quivering voice.
"No! You're not a monster, my boy!" Hiruzen exclaimed. He reached into his robes and took out a scroll and a kunai. "Tell me, what do you see here?" he asked.
"That's a kunai and a scroll…"
"Indeed. Now I'm going to seal the kunai into the scroll," Hiruzen said before following suit with action, making the kunai disappear in a puff of smoke, "What do I have here now?"
"A scroll?" Naruto confusedly answers.
Hiruzen nodded knowingly, "Yes, Naruto-kun. It's still a scroll – a scroll with a kunai inside of it, but still nothing more than a simple scroll."
Seeing the confused look on Naruto's face, Hiruzen smiled and explained the analogy, "It's the same with you, my boy. When you were born, you were a boy, plain and simple. Just like this is a scroll, plain and simple. And just like the kunai was sealed in this scroll, the Nine-Tailed Fox was sealed in you. And just like this scroll with the kunai in it is still nothing more than a scroll, you, even with the Nine-Tails sealed inside you, are still nothing more than a young boy, plain and simple. You are not the Nine-Tails, just like this scroll is not the kunai sealed inside of it."
Seeing Naruto's eyes widen in understanding and enlightenment, Hiruzen pressed on, "The sealing of the Nine-Tails into you makes you not the demon, but its prison, and because of you, this village is still standing. When the Fourth Hokage sealed the Nine-Tails into you, he wished for you to be seen as a hero, but the villagers haven't been able to move past the hurt over all the loss caused in the Nine-Tails' rampage. I wish it were different, but even as Hokage, I can't force people to change their minds."
"I see…" Naruto responded sadly. He now understood why people treated him so coldly, but it didn't make him feel any better though – if anything, it made him feel worse.
Hiruzen noted this, he hoped that what he was about to tell would give the boy a reason to keep going, "Naruto, I want you to know that despite their feelings, they have no excuse to treat you the way those mothers did, earlier – yes, I was watching from my crystal ball over there. And about what those monsters said, about your parents hating you? That's not true, Naruto-kun," he said, snapping Naruto out of his sad mood.
"But then why aren't they here?! Did you know them?!" Naruto demanded.
"First off, you have to understand that I didn't tell you about your parents because they made many enemies during their lives. I was going to tell you once you were strong enough to defend yourself from people who would want to hurt you just for who your parents are," Hiruzen answered, "For that same reason, I still can't tell you who your father is yet, besides that he died during the Nine-Tails' rampage, but I can tell you about your mother. Your mother's name is Kushina Uzumaki, and she is still alive. She is in a coma right now – a deep sleep if you will."
"But why is she sleeping instead of being here? Did she not want me?" Naruto asked with obvious worry.
"Your mother loved you very much and she was prepared to sacrifice herself that night to save your life. She was still alive after the Nine-Tails' attack, barely, but alive nonetheless. I placed her in a secret facility so that her wounds can heal as she sleeps. I'm still doing everything I can to make sure she will recover," Hiruzen explained before asking, "How about I take you there so you can see her?"
Naruto latched on to Hiruzen and cried, "Thank you Grandpa…I'd love that!"
"Well, what are we waiting for? Come with me," Hiruzen said with a warm smile as he took Naruto's hand, leading him to the facility where Kushina was slumbering.
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Naruto was silent the entire time as he listened to Hiruzen's stories about what kind of person his mother was as the Hokage led him through the hidden underground tunnels leading from the Hokage Residence to the secret facility underneath the Hokage Monument, where his mother was kept. He couldn't believe it! He was actually going to see his mother – it was like a dream about to come true! Eventually they reached the room where Kushina was laying.
With a grandfatherly smile, Hiruzen motioned Naruto to go inside, "Go on, meet her. Even though she won't talk back right now, I'm sure she will listen to you."
Nodding his head up and down a few times, Naruto entered the room with nervousness – the kind of nervousness you felt when something you always desired very, very much was within arm's reach, but you were afraid that it was too good to be true, that it would disappear right in front of your eyes when you try to grab it.
There she was, lying on a hospital bed with wires and tubes attached to her body in various places and an oxygen mask placed over her mouth.
Taking a few seconds to collect himself, he slowly walked up next the bed and took a moment to take in his mother's sleeping form, noting that she looked like an angel. With both hands, he clutched his mother's left hand.
"Mom? Can you hear me? It's me, Naruto," he began to say to her before he choked up, "I wanted…I wanted to meet you for so long…Mom."
"Grandpa told me you're a really cool and strong ninja. But he never told me you were so pretty, too," Naruto told her with a smile on his face as he was just saying whatever came to mind, "I'm six already and I'm going to the Ninja Academy soon! I'll learn cool jutsus and moves, so I can be awesome like you too, and make you proud! And I'll make friends! Oh, and I love ramen too, just like Grandpa said you do! And one day, I'll be Hokage – the Orange Hokage, just you wait!"
Despite knowing she couldn't respond to him, it still hurt seeing his mother like this, unable to speak to him, and tears began to trickle from his eyes, "Please wake up soon, I…I…I wanna talk to you for real, Mom. I don't wanna be alone anymore, ya know!"
Hiruzen watched with sadness from the sides as Naruto continued to pour his heart out to his comatose mother, torn between being happy at finally meeting her, and hurt because even though she was there, she couldn't be there for him. It tugged on his heartstrings to give the boy what may very well be false hope, but at least that hope would give the boy a reason to carry on and drive himself forward…for now at least.
Soon enough, Naruto stopped talking to his mother, not knowing what to say anymore. He just kept hold of her hand like a lifeline, trying to comfort himself with her presence in silence. The fatigue from his emotionally and physically taxing day finally caught up with him as he started to doze off. Seeing this, Hiruzen picked him up before he could drop to the ground.
Looking to Kushina for a moment, he sighed, "He really takes after you, Kushina. I'm doing my best to look after him while you and Jiraiya can't, but I'm afraid these old bones' best just isn't good enough. Jiraiya can't get here right now because of the ridiculous amount of missions we've needed done that seem to need his personal attention. He needs you…"
Turning around, Hiruzen exited the facility as he headed for Naruto's apartment to bring the sleeping boy to his bed. Once he arrived there, he quickly and quietly put the boy down to bed, and left as quietly as he came. His thoughts turned to a certain Toad Sage as he walked back to his office to finish some last-minute tasks before he would head home to bed.
"Jiraiya, my boy…" he whispered aloud to himself, "…I need to find a way to better distribute your mission load so that I can bring you back here. Naruto would fare much better if he had his godfather in his life."
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Two months later…
Two months later, Naruto stood in front of the class he was going to join. Grandpa had enrolled him so he could become a ninja. Next to him stood one of the class instructors, Iruka Umino.
"Alright class, we have a new student joining our academy today," Iruka announced to the class.
Being stared at by so many people at once made Naruto somewhat nervous, but he was excited as well! "I'm Naruto Uzumaki and I'm going to become Hokage, ya know!" he blurted out.
After a brief silence, the entire class burst out laughing.
"Hey, look at those weird whiskers!"
"Ya know?! Hahaha! That sounds so stupid!"
"You? Hokage? Yeah right!"
Naruto's head dropped down with his hair shadowing his eyes. 'Great, my first day just started and I'm already screwing up...' he inwardly sulked as everyone kept laughing at his introduction.
"That's enough, be quiet everyone, settle down now!" Iruka said, trying to get everyone to stop laughing so that he could start class. A tick mark formed on his head as he was ignored.
"EVERYONE SHUT UP!"
That did the trick. Satisfied, Iruka motioned for Naruto to take his seat, "Take your seat over there, Naruto."
Naruto obliged and quickly scurried over to his appointed seat.
"Alright, we will begin with history and the founding of Konoha…" Iruka droned, to everyone's chagrin as the theory lessons were so boring that it could put a Tailed Beast to sleep!
'I hope the next five years won't be like this or I'll die from boredom…!' Naruto lamented as he unsuccessfully tried to keep his attention to Iruka's lecture.
End of Chapter
A/N:
Like I've mentioned before, this isn't the most exciting of chapters. There will be two more prologue chapters before things start picking up for real: chapter one shows everything that happens pre-graduation, chapter two covers the events from post-graduation up and until the timeskip and chapter three is where the main story will finally begin as we will see Kushina don The Mask for the first time.
