| Hidden Leaf Village, 13 Years Prior |
A booming roar split the sky. Its source—a massive red fox—lashed out with one of its nine tails and shattered a nearby mountain.
Below its massive frame, a crowd of brave men gathered. All of them wore a signature headband sporting the symbol of those they were sworn to protect. Uniformly dressed in reinforced green vests, they shouted orders among themselves, fearlessly engaging the beast they found themselves pitted against.
"Hold it back!" one shouted.
"We must wait until the Fourth Hokage arrives!" added another.
"Keep it away from the village!" ordered one at the forefront of the group.
As knives, fireballs, and explosions barraged the fox, it continued its rampage, moving ever closer to the walled city that had imprisoned it for so long.
Suddenly, the fox crashed down to the ground. A toad, nearly the size of a skyscraper, sat on top it—and atop the toad, stood a cloaked man with bright, spiked blonde hair and fiery cerulean eyes. He turned to the surprised group of men.
"It's the Fourth Hokage!" shouted one of them.
Despite the situation, the man simply smiled. "You fought bravely, everyone. I'll handle it from here."
Suddenly, the man, the toad, and the fox were all gone. An explosion that lit up the night sky like white fire erupted in the distance. The man had taken the fight elsewhere.
When the group of brave men arrived at the new scene, there was no Nine Tailed Fox, no toad, no man… just a newborn baby boy, sleeping silently on a pedestal, a seal glowing on his stomach.
One of the men, dressed in a completely black outfit and outfitted with a long, black and white staff stepped forward. "Minato… did he…?"
Another man with a scarred face and a ponytail shaped like a pineapple followed suit. He turned to the man dressed in black and asked an open-ended question… one that he already knew the answer to. "Third Hokage-sama… did Minato do what I think he did?"
The Third Hokage sighed. "Yes… he did, Shikaku. This boy… now has the Nine Tailed Fox inside him."
| Hidden Leaf Village, Present Day |
Naruto silently surveyed the classroom, his short blonde hair gleaming in the sunlight streaming in from the window to his right. A white-haired man in a green vest was slowly passing out sheets of paper to each student. Naruto frowned as he reached a certain boy with spiked black hair, who scoffed at something on the paper.
"Damn Sasuke," Naruto thought to himself. "Can't he take the test without emphasizing how 'smart' he is?
At the front of the room, another man with a pineapple haircut and a scar across his nose watched his students closely. As his colleague, the man passing out the papers, reached Naruto, he watched Naruto's reaction closely.
"Good luck on the test, Naruto," Mizuki whispered quietly with a small grin.
Naruto glanced at Sasuke, who had already leaned back in his chair as if he was finished. "Psh, I won't need luck, Mizuki-sensei," Naruto scoffed, grabbing the test and reading the questions quietly as Mizuki continued on to the other students.
The first question read: "Who is the Hokage?"
"Easy-peasy," Naruto told himself, writing down his answer—"The old man."
The teacher at the front of the classroom bit his lip. "Looks like Naruto didn't notice the genjutsu…" he thought to himself, silently making a note to cover genjutsu in the class again.
Ten minutes later, the scarred man said with an authoritative voice, "Alright, class—pencils down."
Across the room, Naruto slammed his hand on the table and yelled, "Yeah! I aced this test!"
A girl with pink hair seated directly behind him glanced at his test and sighed. "Naruto, you're an idiot."
Naruto turned 180 degrees abruptly and angrily, but upon seeing the girl's face, any pride he had immediately turned to mush. "B-but, Sakura-chan… how can you say that?"
Sakura simply tapped him on the shoulder, and suddenly he was staring a blank test… and he didn't know any of the answers, either.
"It was a genjutsu, moron," she said simply. "I bet Sasuke noticed it, didn't you, Sasuke-kun~?"
The black-haired boy let out a silent "hmph" as his response. He turned around to Naruto, and the onyx eyes of Sasuke met with Naruto's bright blue. "Of course I did. Guess you're still dead last, Naruto."
The blonde seethed silently, and just as he was about to make another outburst about how much of bastard Sasuke was, the teacher stopped him.
"Alright, you two, that's enough. We'll be going over genjutsu again so that you all know exactly what it is."
The class groaned. One boy—yet another with a pineapple haircut—laid his head down and went to sleep. As select members of the class turned to Naruto with accusing eyes, Naruto simply crossed his arms and showed that he didn't care.
Inwardly, however… he was simply marking up another failure in a long list of them.
He was broken out of his stupor a few minutes later when the teacher announced to the class that the graduation exam would take place later today. Naruto, seeing his opportunity to finally prove himself, gladly announced to the class, "I'm going to pass this time and prove you all wrong!"
Sasuke let out a silent laugh to himself, not even looking in Naruto's direction. The boy with the pineapple haircut lifted his head in response to Naruto's outburst and turned toward him. "Naruto, could you tone it down a little? It's such a drag when you wake me up from my naps."
"Shut up, Shikamaru, you lazy bum!" Naruto shouted in response. He turned to the teacher at the front of the classroom. "Iruka-sensei, I want to take the exam right now!"
Iruka looked surprised. "Naruto, are you sure? Why not just wait?"
Naruto continued to shout his responses. "I want to show all of these people how great I am! I'll be Hokage one day!"
The entire class groaned in unison, but Iruka simply smiled. "Alright, Naruto. Follow me down the hallway to the testing room."
| Two Hours Later |
Naruto sat on a bench to the side of the school, looking down at the ground, not knowing what to do with himself. As he glanced toward the crowd of his classmates, all wearing bright blue headbands with the Leaf Symbol etched into them, he sighed in disbelief.
Suddenly, a presence sat itself down next to Naruto. "Hey, Naruto," it said.
Naruto turned in surprise toward his newfound company. "Mizuki-sensei? What are you doing here?" he asked.
"I heard you failed your exam, and I just came to say that you shouldn't be so down on yourself," Mizuki responded.
Naruto looked down at the ground. "But this is the third time, Mizuki-sensei… sometimes I wonder if I'll ever pass."
Mizuki smiled. "Well, you know, I'm not supposed to tell you this, but… we've got a special exam for students just like you! You're no good at the drudgery of schoolwork—us teachers know that you learn much better by doing things yourself. It takes a bit of an exception, but… I think you qualify for it!"
Beaming up at his sensei, Naruto smiled. "Really, Mizuki-sensei? Thanks so much! What do I have to do?"
| Outskirts of the Hidden Leaf Village, Six Hours Later |
Panting as he ran through the trees, Naruto continued along the path Mizuki had outlined. On his back, he carried a massive scroll—and according to Mizuki, there were a lot of amazing techniques in here for him to learn! He couldn't pass this chance up.
"Just steal the scroll from the Hokage Tower. If you can learn one jutsu from it seven hours' time, we'll consider you passed," Mizuki had told him.
It had taken a bit longer than he expected to steal the scroll, so now he had to work fast to learn the jutsu. He arrived at a small wooden cabin in the forest and decided it was a good place to stop, and then unrolled the scroll and read the first jutsu.
"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu" (Shadow Clone Jutsu), it read.
"Guess I'll do this one. Better work fast!" Naruto thought to himself, crossing the pointer fingers and middle fingers from both of his hands as the scroll instructed, beginning his training.
| An Hour Later |
Naruto sighed loudly as he fell to the ground, making no progress in learning the technique. "Damn, this jutsu is hard!" he shouted to himself. As he stood up and crossed his fingers again, a certain pineapple-headed ninja arrived on the scene.
"Naruto! What do you think you're doing with that scroll?" the man shouted.
Surprised, Naruto stumbled backwards and turned to face the man. "Iruka-sensei! I'm just doing that extra test Mizuki told me about! I'm going to learn this new jutsu and then I'll be a genin!"
Iruka was shocked. "Test… what test…? And Mizuki…? What are you talking about?"
From above, in the trees, a new voice entered. "So you got the scroll, Naruto? Good work!"
Both Naruto and Iruka turned to face the source of the voice. On a branch above them, Mizuki stood, fully dressed in war gear with a massive fuma shuriken on his back.
"What's the meaning of this, Mizuki?" Iruka asked.
"Just giving Naruto a test is all! I guess he passed, but it wasn't a test to become a genin, it was a test to see how desperate one can be!"
Naruto butted in. "What do you mean, Mizuki-sensei? You said if took this scroll and learned a jutsu from it, I could become a genin!"
Mizuki let out a maniacal laugh. "And you actually believed that? A specialized test for certain students that don't do well in school? Come on, how stupid are you?!"
Naruto was speechless in shock, and Iruka was staring daggers through his colleague. "Mizuki, what the hell are you thinking?"
Laughing again, Mizuki continued. "You always did have a soft spot for Naruto, didn't you? You think you and him are alike? Ridiculous! He's a demon that shouldn't even exist!"
"A-a demon?" Naruto stammered.
"MIZUKI!" Iruka shouted, only to receive some more maniacal laughter from the observer to the situation.
"That's right, Naruto! I said you're a demon! Do you know why everyone in the village hates you—despises you? Why you can't make any friends? It's because you're the vessel for a demon fox that destroyed our village 13 years ago!" Mizuki announced across the clearing.
Iruka attempted to interrupt by engaging in a fight with Mizuki, but he wasn't fast enough. The damage had been done. Naruto stumbled backwards and fell to his feet in utter shock. He was… a demon? Hated by everyone because he had destroyed the village?
"NARUTO, GET DOWN!" Iruka shouted, and Naruto broke out of his stupor long enough to see a group of shuriken headed in his direction.
As Naruto saw his life flash before his eyes, the only image he didn't recognize was a cloaked man sitting on a cliff, as if waiting for something…
Suddenly, a shadow stood over Naruto. Salty tears fell down on him, and as he looked up, he saw the trademark scarred nose of his sensei. "I—Iruka-sensei? Why…?" he stammered.
"Because you and I… are alike, Naruto… because I went through what you went through when I was young, and I wouldn't wish it upon my worst enemy…" Iruka cried between gasps. Drops of blood ran down Iruka's back from the shuriken that had been embedded into it.
"Naruto, I know the pain of being alone… and I just want you to know that you're not alone, and have never been alone… and if the circumstances were different, I would've helped you sooner." Iruka gasped as he tipped over and lost consciousness from the blood loss and shock.
Naruto's world shattered around him. He had always liked Iruka-sensei… even though his teacher was harsh, Naruto knew that he only had the best in mind. And now… to hear these words from what amounted to his only friend in the world… and to see that friend lay unconscious near him at the hands of someone he had once trusted? It was… too much…
His vision faded to black, and he lost control of his body. He didn't know what was compelling him, but he stood up and took a sturdy fighting stance. Mizuki looked shocked.
"But… that's not… what is this power…?" he heard Mizuki stammer.
Naruto's eyes began to glow a royal blue, and chakra of the same color seemed to envelop him and form a collared cloak around his body. His mouth opened to speak, but the voice that came out was not his own.
"Well said, Iruka-san." The voice spoke with an undeniable authority, and yet its calmness could not be denied. It was a voice that could be comforting or demanding all the same, and if used correctly, it could have commanded an army all on its own.
Mizuki's eyes had grown even wider. "This isn't the Nine-Tails' power… so what is it? And that cloak… I've only ever seen it in one other place…"
Naruto spoke again in his strange voice. "Mizuki-san, is it? I had hoped not to interfere, but it would appear as though I have no choice."
Though Mizuki could not associate the voice with a face, he knew it commanded a certain authority of experience and humanity. There's no way this could be the Nine-Tails…
The voice continued. "I have watched from inside Naruto since he was born. His suffering is no mystery to me… but when the decision was made to seal the Nine Tails into this boy, I never once imagined he would be met with such hatred. And yet, in the face of this hate… he persists, as I hoped he would, 13 years ago…"
Mizuki had somewhat regained his composure, but the entire situation was out of his hands. He pushed more, however, out of curiosity. "You speak of the Nine Tails in third person, and as if you were the one that made the seal—but only the Fourth Hokage could speak like that! He made this boy what he is!"
Suddenly, Naruto was behind Mizuki with a kunai at his throat. From Mizuki's point of view, all he could see was a flash of yellow hair. "But this speed… that's not possible! The only person I've heard of that's that fast is…" Mizuki thought to himself, but was interrupted abruptly by the voice's continuation of its sentence.
"You're correct on many accounts in your retelling of the story 13 years ago. However, you got one fact wrong… on that night, a mistake was made. The Nine Tails was taken to its death, it was not sealed… the one who was sealed was myself—Minato Namikaze, the Fourth Hokage… and this boy's father."