AN: It has been awhile since I've actually sat down to write something so if I'm a bit rusty then please point out to me any problems you see. More so grammar wise, seeing as how I may be fibbing some of the Naruto-verse facts from time to time so that my story will fit overall and not have any strange plot-holes. Rest assured though, any facts I do bend, change or scrap, I will try my best to make sure I don't accidentally create my own plot-holes. Should you see any of those then I'm all ears...or eyes, as the case may be.

Disclaimer: Only saying this once I do not own Naruto. If I did, he wouldn't be such an annoying fool.

"Naruto! My boy it is good to see you! However, unless these old eyes of mine deceive me...you should be in the academy right now, according to the clock." Said the elderly man sitting behind the desk.

Sarutobi Hiruzen was his name. A strong shinobi, a shrewd political operator, and a kind ruler. Though he was not without the particular ruthlessness that came with being a Kage of a hidden village, he had lived through three Shinobi World Wars after all. This was the Third Hokage. The Professor. The God of Shinobi, which he also happened to be the third of, with the Sage of the Six Paths being the first and Senju Hashirama being second to have that title.

He wore his white and red Kage robes along with his hat that held the kanji for Fire on it. The Hokage ruled over the village of Konoha, located within the Land of Fire. Though that did not seem to matter to the youth that was now pulling his chair up closer to the desk, sitting quite moodily in it and letting his body slump as he got comfortable.

"Jiji!" The boy whined almost pathetically. "If I didn't know any better I'd think you were trying to get rid of me." He pouted. Though he would never admit that he did. Uzumaki Naruto does not pout.

"What a silly notion my boy, it isn't like you come here every other day or anything. Sit in my chair or on my couch and say 'Jiji why must one of my stature and grace mingle among others! Oh my heart!'" Hiruzen made quite a show of suffering that involved a lot of heart clenching before falling forward on his desk.

"Har har jiji. Maybe you should have been an actor instead of a Kage?" Naruto said cheekily. "You know you could always go do that now, let me have the hat and we'll even build a new theater just for you to star in."

The Third chuckled heartily. If he would like to have any visitor it would be Naruto. He was rather smart for a child of twelve. Hiruzen blamed it on the ANBU he had watch over the child since he was, well, a child. They always took the time to teach him little things here and there, more so the female portion of his ANBU who obviously thought he was cute. He had at one point walked in upon Cat showing Naruto how to play Shogi, remarkably the boy had caught on fairly quickly for his age. When he had asked young Naruto about it all he got in response was that everything had a pattern of some sort to follow, like a song.

As Naruto was messing with a pen, one he probably swiped from his sensei Iruka no doubt judging by the initials on the side, Hiruzen got a good look at the boy he had known ever since he was a baby. Naruto had shaggy blond hair that went a bit past his eyes and down past the nape of his neck. He had scars along his cheeks that were almost like claw marks. He imagined that it would look rather intimidating to enemies once he made a name for himself. Naruto was not short, but he was a bit under the average height of his class, about 5 foot 2 inches, where as even some of the girls in his age group were coming in at 5 foot 4 inches.

His clothes were as plain as they came, dark blue pants that had multiple pockets and a shirt that was very much the same, from what he could tell. The sleeves of the shirt went perfectly to the boys wrists and seemed wide enough to hide a weapon or two, the material thick enough that he assumed there must be some sort of mesh in-between the fabrics that acted as armor. He had on a coat as well, it was thick like wool but it did not fold and sway the way that wool coats did. Another layer of protection that probably had quite a few pockets hidden and not so hidden within it. The sleeves of the coat however only went past Naruto's elbows by about two inches. It was a very deep rust color, contrasting but not clashing with his dark blue clothes underneath. The coat went down to the boys shins. All in all he looked rather professional and he would probably break a few hearts as he grew older.

Let it not be said however that Uzumaki Naruto is without his own oddities. He wore a hat that was old, very old and worn. Not so much in the way that there were holes in it, but in the way that the hat had obviously seen quite a bit of the elements. He imagined it had been sat on by accident quite the few number of times over the years as well. It was a strange hat. Wide brimmed but more oval in shape than anything else. On one edge of the hat was an earring, he had often seen Naruto toying with it when he was thinking.

Letting his mind wander a bit farther, Hiruzen remembered the day that Naruto had acquired the hat. ANBU were watching him after the boy had run from the orphanage in tears one day. The cruel words Naruto had relayed to him still made his blood boil. As it was he had immediately set out to have a few cruel words of his own with the orphanage matrons and was walking back into his office where he knew the boy was sleeping on the couch. He had seen the hat in his grip, thought nothing of it, then looked back again just to make sure he wasn't going senile in his old age.

Remembering clearly he had called out to his ANBU and asked "Who gave Naruto the hat?"

It was silent for a moment, before the ANBU within his office burst from every corner and stared at the boy, so baffled by the fact that he had somehow gotten a hold of this hat and none of them had noticed. If anyone had come within one hundred feet of the room they would have noticed but he must have gotten the hat sometime between the Hokage leaving and coming back right?

After a few stuttered apologies from his ANBU and a couple paranoid rantings about some sort of invisible specter giving Naruto the hat for safe keeping, things had gotten back to normal. Checking the hat over for seals or any sort of tracking devices he found none. Hiruzen had resolved to keep an eye on Naruto, just in case it really was a ghost, though he very much doubted that.

Bringing himself out of his thoughts he caught the tail end of Naruto's question. "I'm sorry Naruto I was thinking about love come and gone, what was it you said?" Hiruzen smiled. Naruto twitched.

"I asked what you were smoking, Jiji." The Third grabbed at his heart again.

"Well I never..." Naruto rolled his eyes.

"I meant literally, it smells pretty good. Maybe I have just gotten use to it or somethin', either way it still smells nice." Hiruzen blinked owlishly while looking at his pipe. He almost forgot he was even smoking it still, maybe he really was getting old.

"Well this particular type is called...black something or another. My student usually brings them back for me, but he always just dumps it all into a storage scroll and gives it to me whenever we see each other." Jiraiya, his student, had mentioned the name to him once, he could not remember it to save his life.

Naruto seemed to focus on the pipe for a bit. Closing his eyes and breathing through his nose he let the aroma fill his senses. "Well since I'm here anyway, you wanna have a game of shogi, old man?" Nodding, Hiruzen pulled out the shogi board from underneath his desk and they started to set it up. It only took a few seconds, this was a practiced ritual by them ever since Naruto learned that no matter how close he felt like he was, the Third would always checkmate him.

The game started and it was mostly silent. Naruto learned from the Hokage himself that patience was what helped him live for so long and he took it to heart. Hiruzen was proud of Naruto, he was like a grandson and a friend rolled into one, and while he could not help Naruto without playing favorites, he could always impart whatever wisdom he felt like he should to help him along his path.

Naruto had always been observant, he realized. Several years ago he had gotten a glimpse of Hiruzen with his guard down. He imagined he probably looked so old and tired to the boy, and so sad. As it was he was thinking about his late wife Biwako when Naruto had seen him. The boy had hugged him with all the strength he had in his little arms at the time.

"I'm going to be Hokage one day Jiji, I'll take that hat from you, so you don't ever have to look like that again." The little boy had proclaimed into his Hokage robes. It warmed his heart, if he wasn't the hardened warrior he was then Hiruzen would have probably wept at the gesture.

Yes, if there was anyone he would want to take over after himself it would be this boy. He had never told the boy of the Will of Fire that he so vehemently believed in. Not because the boy would not listen, heavens no, but because he never needed to. Naruto seemed to be the walking definition of the Will of Fire and now he just had to wait until he could hand over the position. He desperately hoped this old body of his held out until that day, he very much wished to see it.

"Damnit. What am I doing wrong Jiji?" Naruto questioned unhappily. Hiruzen had just checkmated him thoroughly, it was even faster than it had been over the weekend. How could he be getting even worse?

The Third chuckled lightly and waved his hand over the board. "Well tell me what you see here first."

Naruto began toying with the earring on his hat, he was thinking. The hat shadowed his eyes as they darted back and forth across the board, probably retracing his moves, Hiruzen thought. Several minutes later Naruto looked back up at him.

"I missed an opening I could have used against you, but even if I did wouldn't I have lost more than I gained anyway?" Naruto asked. His brows were furrowed as he tried to think of something else that could have made him lose so quickly.

Seeing his confusion Hiruzen decided to elaborate a bit more starting from where Naruto left off.

"Yes, you did miss a chance you could have used against me. It is also true that you may have lost more than what you had gained but you also have to look at the bigger picture at times. With that move you could have surprised me enough into making a mistake, blocked one of my moves for a future plan, or even just delayed the inevitable for a time as you waited for another opening."

Sighing despondently Naruto looked back to the board as he spoke. "I always try to plan three moves ahead but you will always have ten more to counter. How could I possibly beat that?"

"Ah, in our line of work that is a question we will all ask ourselves from time to time." Said Hiruzen. "Would you like to know what I saw when we were playing Naruto?"

Naruto nodded as he leaned forward in his chair, hoping to understand from a Kage's point of view his own failings.

"I saw hesitation. Naruto. You hesitated to make that move because you were being much too cautious."

The boy seemed flabbergasted "But you have always said that being cautious is a trait every shinobi should have!" Cried Naruto.

Hiruzen stopped him with a raise of his hand, putting his pipe down to give Naruto his full attention. "Caution is a virtue as they say but being too cautious will lead to hesitation and hesitation for any shinobi can kill you just as easily as not being cautious enough could." Realization seemed to flash across Naruto's eyes.

"Balance. The key is for balance." Hiruzen smiled. The boy was so very bright, he would make a wonderful shinobi.

"Exactly right. You were too cautious because you knew how good I was. It forced you to hesitate, you didn't take the opening because the thought that crossed your mind was 'It might not work.' but you cannot have such thoughts. Just like how every plan will never survive first contact, no victory is ever really assured and we cannot expect them to be or we will definitely lose. Be cautious Naruto, but never hesitate."

Seeing Naruto nod his head in understanding he started putting away the board. "We will talk more later my boy, I should probably get back to these reports now. Make sure you attend the academy tomorrow. You only have a couple days left do you not?"

"About a week left Jiji. I'll see you later!" Naruto called out as he headed towards the office door.

The door shut with a soft click and Hiruzen was left alone with his thoughts once more. Naruto would not be taking the normal exam like the other students. Naruto was a Jinchuriki, a jailer for the Kyubi no Yoko. Twelve years ago it had forced itself right into their gates and began wreaking havoc among his village. The Fourth Hokage, Namikaze Minato, sealed the beast into Naruto before succumbing to the technique he had used to do it.

A much better kept secret than Naruto being a Jinchuriki was that the man was also Naruto's father. Minato could not ask this of another parent if he himself could not sacrifice the same, at least that was what his thought process was.

The Fourth had many enemies after the Third Shinobi World War and they would have probably tried to assassinate his only son if they knew he existed. Hiruzen gave Naruto his mother's last name Uzumaki to hide him in plain sight. Although, while he could confirm that Minato was dead, he had seen the body after all, he could not confirm the same with Uzumaki Kushina, Naruto's mother. That would forever bother him. The boy could have a mother out there somewhere, but after twelve years he didn't have much hope for that left.

Hiruzen did his best to give the boy a decent life, but most of the older generation that knew what he was were bitter and jaded towards him. Naruto was a deeply hurt child and most of his childhood was very lonely. Even now he was probably still hurting, but it is the reason his door is always open for Naruto, the least he could do happened to be the best he could as well. That would always pain him. The villagers would never abuse him physically, no they understood that such a thing would bring the wrath of the Hokage upon them like a lightning strike. Emotionally and mentally hurting the child was out of his hands though. As much as he would like to, he could not force people to be kind.

Shaking off his current train of thought Hiruzen recalled when Naruto had first started learning how to do shinobi techniques. The boy had more than enough chakra for the three academy techniques, but nothing they tried seemed to work except for the Henge. After calling in a Hyuga and an Uchiha they had quickly realized the problem. While Naruto could use chakra and chakra techniques, they needed to be connected with himself or the chakra he used to create the technique would simply disperse like water vapor.

A curious thing if he ever saw one, but he was no stranger to such things and it was not like they did not have shinobi very similar to Naruto. Rock Lee was a relatively new genin that couldn't do any shinobi techniques whatsoever, but he passed the exam set for him because his stealth was decent and his taijutsu was more on par with a low chunin than a genin. Under the watchful eye of Maito Gai he would make something wonderful of himself, and so would Naruto. As long as his other shinobi qualities were up to snuff according to his and his advisers requirements then Naruto would be a genin by the end of this week.

Getting back to signing papers, Hiruzen pretended not to hear the light snore of the ANBU who got the position behind the couch today. "Well." Hiruzen thought. "At least he can hide and sleep at the same time."

Naruto was going through the separate parts of the taijutsu style he was trying to create. The academy style made him feel like he had two left feet so he took it upon himself to read up on some styles that were open to the public in the library. He smirked lightly, some of them were pretty devastating just on their own. A thought occurred to him as he was reading about them though.

If he could find them, in a public library that even non-shinobi could get into, what's to say that no one else out in the world could know exactly how the styles worked too? Maybe were even masters of the style?

He decided that he needed to create something that no one had seen before, so he started splicing forms together from styles he had read about. Dedicating some time every day to practicing them separately then fusing them together into something that was fluid. It was difficult to judge whether he was making progress or if the style was forming nicely without any huge holes in his stances but he had already partially figured a way to do it, at least until he met someone who was better at taijutsu than he was.

Stretching to get himself as loose as he could, Naruto started walking towards the flowing river.

"Alright, it's just constantly flowing your chakra along with the water. Constantly flowing." Naruto muttered. Breathing deeply, he walked out onto the water with shaky legs. The past few weeks consisted of him trying to not only master water walking now that tree walking was second nature to him, but also seeing his reflection in the clear water as he practiced so he could judge his stances.

It was a ramshackle solution he knew, but it was the best he had at the moment. It did help him kill two birds with one stone and he could feel himself getting better every day, but it would still be awhile until he could say he had mastered water walking completely.

Now that he was somewhat firmly grounded, the humor in the statement not lost on him, he started mixing his previously practiced forms together against an imaginary opponent. Occasionally he would slip on his control and sink his foot into the water before regaining it.

He loved to train here. It was a pretty small clearing, enough to let loose with taijutsu all you want but too dense for any serious ninjutsu training. The river he was next to was near the back part of the clearing, across the river was an even denser forest that he never really felt the need to explore. He didn't have any training posts or targets but old strong trees worked just fine for him.

It was also quiet. Naruto loved quiet. It allowed him to concentrate all of his energy into his training. No one would "stumble" upon him here, so hardly will his concentration be broken. Especially when training something so advanced as his own taijutsu style.

The style he was trying to create would be quick and ruthless. It would require great balance and a very strong upper body, grappling an enemy and throwing them off balance. Killing them quickly or causing them great pain using the momentum of his own body and the body of his enemy as a focal point.

After learning about his inability to use jutsu that was not within contact of himself he immediately began studying and asking any shinobi he came across questions about defensive techniques that focused on the body. An ANBU with a dog mask told him that in the Third Shinobi World War there were Iwa-nin that could use Doton(Earth) to strengthen their bodies and extremities to fight.

Naruto already knew he did not have a Doton affinity so that particular jutsu recreation was out. He decided to try something else. "If chakra can enhance anything just by itself then the premise should be the same right?" Naruto had thought.

This experiment proved to bear fruit as the results of trying to strengthen his entire body did give him a sort of chakra armor, but it used way too much chakra and Naruto really didn't want to light up like a shooting star every time he used it.

This lead him to beginning his chakra control training very early, the information for such things were not hard to find, especially if you could chat up a couple of pretty chunin girls as an innocent academy student. Naruto learned through trial and error that if he wanted this to work he needed to first weave his chakra in such a way that it was like overlapping layers of mesh and less like a skin tight bubble suit. He had tried that first and almost suffocated himself.

Once he had the required chakra control to weave it correctly, he had to make sure it was weaved in layers underneath his skin and ascending to the top skin layer. In this way his skin would essentially also be armor in and of itself, but the chakra control for such a thing was still a little out of his reach so the most his could do was weave enough chakra to go about a fourth through his skin.

Still useful, but consumed more chakra than it should. He wasn't put out by it though, he would master this and any other skills he created or learned. Just like Jiji did. No one had made a bigger impact on his life than the Third. He never lied about being Hokage, he would climb his way up to that position no matter what it took.

He didn't have a one track mind though, there were other dreams he wished for.

"If only if only..." Naruto whispered to the wind.

Spending several more hours training his taijutsu and chakra control the day had already shifted into night, he was ready to start dragging himself home to sleep, then he felt the need to move. Diving hard to the right he just barely missed having his head cleaved off by a kunai. Hitting the ground in a roll he sprang back up and shot a kunai out of each sleeve and into his waiting palms. Bringing them both up to block the flurry of shuriken sent his way he managed to only get a small cut on his cheek for his efforts.

"Who are you!?" Naruto called out. Whoever had attacked him had already fled into the trees again. He was at a disadvantage. His options were few, stay in one place and possibly die, or venture out and try to flee which may lead into a trap, also ending in possible death.

Channeling chakra to his ears Naruto waited for anything that could tell him where this person was. A whistling noise came from above, he jumped and saw that he had just dodged a windmill shuriken. Following it was a volley of kunai aimed right for him.

Palming several kunai he tried to knock them off course. A couple got through and struck his left arm and shoulder. "Fuck..." He grounded out. They were in pretty deep, and now he only had one arm to work with.

"This was a wonderful day to leave your sword at home Naruto, good show you ass." Naruto chastised himself. Grabbing hold of another kunai Naruto ran straight towards the trees, hoping to make it close enough to the village to make some sort of signal. He didn't get far, the assailant appeared next to him in a shunshin and kicked him right back into the clearing.

Naruto skidded across the ground a few yards before flipping himself back onto his feet. The man was illuminated by the moonlight now.

"Mizuki...I can hardly say I am surprised but I have to wonder what you gain from this." Naruto questioned. Mizuki was an ordinary looking chunin unless you count his silver-white hair as odd. He wore a standard chunin flak jacket with a black shirt underneath and black pants.

"What is that scroll he is carrying?" Naruto wondered. It seemed oddly familiar.

Mizuki frowned at him.

"This night would have been a lot easier if you weren't so suspicious of me at every turn." Mizuki admitted. "I had a plan when you first joined the academy to use you to get this scroll for me. You always seemed to know I was faking my kindness towards you though, so I had to do it myself."

Naruto shook his head lightly, keeping his eyes firmly on Mizuki for any hint of movement. "Fake smiles have a habit of looking very strained. Like you are trying to literally frown upside down. You learn to spot them." He answered.

A blur of movement forced him to bring his kunai up quickly, blocking Mizuki's kunai from slitting his throat. Mizuki brought a second kunai up to stab through his kidney but Naruto was able to dance backwards away from it. This continued for several minutes as Naruto tried to block and dodge all of Mizuki's strikes.

Blocking another swipe to his stomach Naruto threw his kunai point blank at Mizuki's face. He was able to tilt his head to avoid it, but so focused on the kunai he was unable to block the knee that shot up right under his ribs, knocking the air out of his lungs. Mizuki jumped backwards to give himself some reprieve as Naruto pulled another kunai out.

Panting heavily, Naruto tried to recollect his thoughts. If Mizuki was stealing something then why would he waste time with him here?

Unless the man was waiting for someone to come help him escape he really didn't have any reason to be fighting with him. They would know it was Mizuki when they realized he was missing from Konoha so killing him to hide his own identity wasn't the reason either.

"As much as I hate to admit this Mizuki, I've barely held you off by the skin of my teeth. Why try and kill me if you already got what you wanted?" Naruto was stalling for time. He didn't want to just let him leave with whatever he had taken. Hopefully ANBU would find them soon.

Mizuki snorted lightly. "If you really want to know, it's because I was ordered to." He smirked a bit, the light from the moon made it look menacing. "Say...Naruto-kun...did you know that you hold the Kyubi no Yoko within your body?" Taking a step forward his smirk widened.

"You aren't even really you anymore you know? Just a vessel...until the demon claws its way back out of you!" Taking a handful of shuriken out Mizuki threw them with all his strength at the young jinchuriki, thinking the revelation would leave him too stunned to move.

Knocking most of them out of the air Naruto only grunted when two shurikens hit him in the chest. These weren't reinforced with chakra like the kunai still sticking out of his body were, they didn't penetrate his coat and shirt.

"I've known about the Kyubi for a long time Mizuki. You will have to try harder than that if you want to shock me." Staring Mizuki down defiantly he wondered if maybe that wasn't the correct thing to say. Mizuki's face twisted into a terrible grimace, being shown up by a kid who wasn't even a genin yet was insulting, and he was running out of time to actually escape this place.

Performing another shunshin he appeared behind Naruto and swept his feet out from underneath him, the kunai in his hand aimed straight for his heart. He was ending this now, there was still time to leave.

Naruto wasn't nearly fast enough to react to Mizuki in his weakened state. As he fell watching the kunai about to end his life he recalled Jiji's words from several days ago. "Never hesitate." It echoed through his mind, focusing as much chakra as he could to the skin above his heart Naruto weaved it faster than he ever had before, trying to make it as strong and durable as possible. He felt the kunai pierce his chest as his own kunai plunged into Mizuki's stomach.

Screaming in surprise and agony Mizuki fell to his knees. "The brat hit something important." He thought as his vision began to darken around the edges. "How the hell did my...kunai...stop?" Was the last thought Mizuki had, before crumpling to the dirt.

As Naruto lay wheezing on the ground he wondered if his last ditch plan had worked, everything hurt, that was a good sign, it meant he wasn't in the afterlife yet. He was having trouble seeing though, not such a good sign. Squinting up at the sky he saw what seemed to be a very blurry Hokage, at least that's what he hoped it was. Naruto let sleep take him over. He was spent, absolutely spent.

AN: Shit? Meh? Decent? Good?

I have a pretty solid plot in mind. I just need to figure out how to write it in an interesting and readable way. I've done my best with the grammar and punctuation but I've always been told that I do have a habit of forgetting everything I've ever learned about writing sometimes so hopefully you will catch something that I miss or don't know about.