Hey all, it's Trake. Been awhile since I wrote some stuff, I've mostly been reading around, see what I like, see what I want that isn't there. I've mostly been reading 100K+ word stories, action/adventure deciding how to portray everyone…stuff like that. I plan to make this a long story, but I'll definitely finish it. I have a lot of stuff going on right now, but I think I can make it work. Anyways, here's some stuff you should know before reading.

Disclaimer: Yeah, so Naruto doesn't belong to me, and I don't believe in making up characters so nothing will belong to me. In the rare chance that I make up any jutsus I don't really plan on copyrighting them or anything like that, they're just words go right ahead with them.

Summary: This is an AU story, in which an event taking place 13 years or so before the anime/manga changes everything: Iruka is killed with his parents by Kyuubi. Naruto, left without any source of light in his life turns to hate and power. Some stuff happens, you'll see. Since I kept searching for it under summary and couldn't find any, I'll say it as a spoiler: Naruto joins Akatsuki. You'll just have to read for more details.

Reviewers. I am not going to have one of those lame "Review reply" things here. I thank every single reviewer I get right now. Thanks. If you have a big important question, I'll answer, but if it's like "Why does Naruto dodge all of those kunai when he's running from that guy trying to kill him?" I don't plan on answering. However, I will commend you're good grammar.

FINAL AUTHOR NOTE! I appreciate beta readers, but I am in no need! If you really see a huge grammar mistake or plot error or typo, then send it in the review or an e-mail or something. I don't care that I missed a comma in line 482; I really don't. If that offends you I am sorry. Grammar is important to me, but I don't have time to check every little thing. Anyways, on to the story. I hope you all want to know that my cat is currently purring into my leg.

Also, if I spell something like chuunin differently then someone else spells it, or how you spell it, I'm sorry, but that's the way how I think it is or should be spelled, and I'm going to continue like that. Take that you people who spell jounin junin!

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"…Uchiha Sasuke, pass. Uzumaki Naruto, fail. Yamanaka Ino, pass. That is everyone, to those who passed congratulations! For those who failed, try harder and come back next semester. You are all free to go. Anyone who passed, report here tomorrow at 0700 hours. Be prompt, it is unbefitting of a ninja to be late. Have a nice day." A white haired man in a chuunin vest wearing his forehead protector straight and proud across his forehead got up, pushed his chair in, and walked out the door with a disorderly row of young kids. He stopped for a second, and looked at them, before locking his eyes on a small boy.

This particular young boy was, is, and will always be Uzumaki Naruto, the sad, friendless kid on the block. He laid his head on his desk, but kept his eyes staring at the front board. As he got up, his bright orange jump suit wrinkled along in the same solemn way that he did. A single tear welled up in his bright azure eye, but he wiped it away quickly before getting up and following the rest of the class out the door. If this were any other kid, everyone would feel sorry for him and treat him with kindness, but that was not the case. Uzumaki Naruto was considered a demon by nearly everyone in his whole village, ninja and commoner alike. Even the white haired chuunin looked at him with distaste in his eyes, before flashing an evil smirk and walking his way.

"What do you want, Mizuki-sensei?" asked Naruto. Mizuki's face was of kind eyes and a warm smile, but inside he was loathing at the small academy student.

"Naruto, this is the third time you've failed, but I have a solution. In the Hokage's mansion in the center of Konoha there is a forbidden scroll with this symbol on it," Mizuki gave Naruto a small piece of paper on it with a kanji mark, "The Hokage wants you to steal it while it is under guard by low-rank ninja without them finding out. If you can get it to the shack just to the north of the village by sundown, you will become a genin. Do you understand?" Mizuki bent down to Naruto's level and looked him straight in the eye.

"I understand mostly, but why would you do that? If I can't do a simple Bunshin no Jutsu, I'm a worthless ninja," Naruto looked straight at the floor while he said that, and his prized goggles were all Mizuki could see apart from his bright yellow hair.

"Well, you see not all ninja's are meant for combat. Now, you aren't too bad at taijutsu, but you're nowhere near Kiba or Sasuke's level, and everything else is abysmal at best. Because of this, some ninjas go into the information gathering profession. If this scroll was important enemy information and you could get it without being caught, it would be incredibly useful. The Hokage wants to know if you have that ability," Mizuki finished in a tone that ended the conversation before Naruto could respond. Naruto closed his mouth and simply nodded, and they both went their separate ways to spend the rest of their afternoons in peace.

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1800 hours

Naruto snuck past the sleeping chuunin at the stairway and crept through a hole in the stairwell to arrive in the scroll room. Inside the scroll room, another chuunin watched the door intently, but the hole had lead Naruto into the cubby (those square scroll storage spaces) wall, and he was hidden behind a pile of small scrolls. After the not-so-easy task of trying to pick out the right scroll without alerting the guard, Naruto found what he was looking for, grabbed the scroll, and left the way he came.

'That was too easy, but I guess the Hokage would lower security to give me a fighting chance. Luckily I am still small enough to fit through that secret hole.' Naruto was snapped out of his thoughts by movement in the stairwell directly above him. He would have moved but he immediately recognized the voice of the disturbance.

"I hope Mizuki doesn't try anything stupid tonight. We had assumptions he'd try to steal the scroll tonight, since most of the jounins are away, but if he does we'll catch him and the elders will have him exiled from Konoha for sure, if not executed," The mystery voice didn't mention it's own name, but Naruto knew at once that it was Hitake Kakashi, a jounin and former ANBU. Naruto wasn't a stalker by any means, but Kakashi was a legend, and Naruto saw him from time to time near the park, talking to himself. Naruto knew what it meant, and he knew he was not guilty of anything, yet from past experience he knew if he was caught even near anything wrong, no story, whether it is true or not, would get him free.

That instant a huge decision was met and made for Naruto, as he strapped the scroll to his back and jumped out the window in the stairwell, running like there was no tomorrow. Truth to be told, if Naruto could not escape from the ninjas that were about to be trailing him, tomorrow would only be a thing of dreams for the young shinobi, and nothing elevated a kid's escaping skill than having his life on the line.

Naturally, Naruto ran, skipped, jumped, slid, dove and glided over under or around any obstacle that stood in his way, heading to an area of the Konoha border walls he knew very well. Position a perfect distance from Ichiraku Ramen and the main gate was a small part of the wall that was cracked near the bottom. Now, this crack would normally be nothing as it only opened a tunnel about an inch tall and about 5 inches wide to the opposite side. However, Naruto had dug a thin canal big enough for only himself beneath the crack. As he reached, he scooted his body through the two meters of tunnel to pop out the other side, all the while pushing the scroll ahead of him.

Once here, he faced two more decisions. Firstly, he has just heard that Mizuki wanted the scroll for selfish reasons. Should he still give it to him, or should he run somewhere else with it? Secondly, every ninja in all of Konoha was undoubtedly looking for him. Should he go slow and try to cover up his trail, or should he just run as fast as he can, for as long as he can?

For the first decision, he immediately decided that he would never help Mizuki out, for he was the reason why Naruto was in this mess to begin with. For the second, Naruto decided his stealth skills and tracking skills were so pathetic it wouldn't matter even if he did try to cover his tracks. With both of these decision in mind, he set a straight-shot course north-west to Iwagakure in the land of earth.

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Yeah, so, it's sort of forward…but whatever, and by the way I'm not going to do any like "6 years later now Naruto owned everything" huge time skips. Maybe like, "One month later, and Naruto finally mastered his jutsu" but that's as far as I'll get. I plan to go through everything step by step. Anyways, back to the story.

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Opening his eyes, Naruto saw the glimmering sun through the branches of the trees. Or, rather, that's what he should have seen. Instead he saw the white ceiling of a room unknown to him. Naruto sat up, and looked around. He saw a plain, white room, with no decorations or other furniture, and a window that over looked a field. Seeing that the window was open, he decided the door was unlocked, and he got up to see what was beyond it. Before he could get a foot away from his bed, the door opened and Naruto saw the man who had brought him here.

"Hey kid, you finally woke up. My name's Soujuro, by the way," The man introduced. Soujuro was at least six foot tall, probably a few inches higher. He was well built, but not too bulky. He wore a sonic blue karate gi, which split at his navel and made a v up to his shoulders. The border line of the gi was black with red kanji, and underneath the gi was a black shirt. He wore black pants, which were similar to Naruto's in every way except size and color. Naruto, looking up, saw the forehead protector on his medium length brown hair which had a symbol which Naruto had never seen.

"I-I'm Uzumaki Naruto. What hidden village are you from with that headband?" Naruto again looked at the headband. To Naruto, it looked like a figure eight turned on it's side, encased in a rectangle.

"This symbol represents my organization, not any hidden village. However, it's not an organization like the underground ones who seek power and money. My organization, called suutagakure, is composed of those who come from any of the hidden villages, and decided to become unaffiliated with all of them. So, tell me, are you a ninja?" Soujuro explained.

"No. I'm just an academy student that can't even pass the genin exam," At the mention of this, Naruto put his head into his hands, and Soujuro smiled knowingly.

"Well, you must be half-way decent if you could steal the forbidden scroll I found you with. Well, anyways, I should let you go. You seem to be on your own path and I shouldn't interrupt. I'll give you some food for your journey, wherever it may lead you," Soujuro left the room, and shut the door behind him.

A few hours later!

Naruto was about a mile from Soujuro's house, heading in the direction he hoped to be north-west. He stopped on a tree branch, and pulled out a map and a compass, but for some reason his compass would not point in any one direction. He shook it, and before he could take another look, he was blasted into a tree by a bolt of lightning.

Thinking fast, Naruto dropped the map, compass, and his backpack, keeping a hold of the scroll, and pulled out a kunai to face his attacker. His face fell when he saw three lightning nins facing him, smirks present on their faces.

"Hey, brat, hand over that scroll on your back and we might not kill you!" the first nin threatened, earning a laugh from his comrades.

"I will never hand this over to you! It's not your to take from someone else!" Naruto sounded vicious, but the scared look on his face showed otherwise.

"I'll have you know that we're lightning chuunin, brat! If you don't hand it over, we'll just kill you and take it off of your dead body!" the first ninja formed a few hand seals before holding out his hands, "Here's my strongest move, Raikyū no Jutsu!"

A ball of pure lightning flew towards Naruto, and hit him in the right shoulder as he tried to dodge, sending him back into the trunk of the tree. Blood ran down the side of his jacket, but he stood back up.

"I won't take back what I said! That's my way of the ninja! I'll fight you with everything I have left!" Naruto tried to move, but couldn't because the pain was so unbearable, 'I guess this is it' he thought.

"As if you could! Raikyū no Jutsu, hit him again!" Another ball of lightning hit Naruto, this time in the leg. The ninja fired and fired again until Naruto lay on the ground beneath the tree unconscious, and nearly dead. "It's time to finish this, I guess," the nameless ninja throws a kunai at Naruto's body, only to find it was destroyed in midair, "What the hell?!"

"You shouldn't harm others for your own good," Soujuro was the man from which the voice came, and he landed right between the lightning troop and Naruto. "I won't give you a chance to explain, but finish this with one of your own attacks! Rairyū no Tatsumaki!" A vortex of painful lightning emitted from Soujuro's hand, and the lightning nin were all killed by it, one by one. The ninja who attacked Naruto was the last one alive, eyes wide in terror, only saying one thing before he died.

"That kid has some damn powerful allies," escaped from his lips before the lightning struck his head, killing him instantly. Soujuro turned around to face the unconscious shinobi laying on the ground.

"Hmm. 'I won't take back what I said! That's my way of the ninja!', eh? Sounds so much like him. Uzumaki Naruto, I've decided. From this day forward, I am going to teach you to become the best ninja you can be!"

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Naruto woke from his pain induced coma to find himself back in the white room, only this time the window was closed as it was raining outside. Naruto, unlike last time, was too tired to explore and stayed in bed, hoping Soujuro would come to him, instead. After about ten minutes of resting his eyes, Naruto was awoken when Soujuro entered the room.

"Hey, kid, congratulations on finally waking up. I have something to tell you, so get dressed and meet me in the main room," Soujuro hastily explained before exiting, and shutting the door. Naruto complied to his wishes, albeit slowly, and made his way to the main room in 10 minutes.

"Hey Soujuro-san, so what did you need to tell me?" Naruto, being incredibly tired, almost drifted off to sleep during his own sentence. Catching himself, he opened his eyes wide to hear what his two time rescuer had to say.

"Well, after that fight with the lightning nin, I had a thought. After the thought, I decided that, starting today, you are going to train under me. I don't care if you don't want to, because I am going to train you no matter how you feel about this. Got it?" Naruto nodded, and Soujuro motioned to the ground in front of him. "Those are some weights. Put them on. You'll find they don't weigh much right now, but if you charge them with chakra, they will weigh whatever you want them too. There is a limit to 500 pounds per weight, but I doubt you'll really need to care about that," After that was said, Naruto slipped on the four weight bands on his wrists and ankles, and pumped a little bit of chakra into them. After stumbling a bit, he found it wasn't so bad.

"How much should I pump in? I don't know how to really work it," Naruto looked to his new sensei for answers, and Soujuro simply walked in, and put his hand on each weight and pumped in his own chakra. Naruto immediately felt a difference, and struggled to stay standing. "How much did you make them weigh?!" Naruto demanded.

"They're only twenty pounds apiece. Don't worry, though, tomorrow I'll make it feel even worse. For now, I want you to show me what you can do. Let's go outside."

After a day of work out and a night of peaceful rest, Naruto got up at 0630 to an alarm clock, got up, got dressed, and ate. At 0700 he walked outside to find his sensei standing their, waiting for him.

"Today, Naruto, you will not be training any ninja skill. Today, I just want you to be able to walk by the end of the day. I need you to take off your shirt and sit on this log, and face away from me." Naruto did as he was told, and he felt a strange tingling on his back. Soujuro had put chakra into his fingertips and drawn a strange seal along the two sides of Naruto's spine.

"Soujuro-sensei, what did you do? And why doesn't it feel any dif-" Naruto regretted what he said when he tried to take a step. He immediately fell into an uncomfortable position on the ground, and could not move at all. "Sou..juro…-sensei…what…?"

This next big paragraph you were about to skip is important albeit long and eye straining.

"The seal I just placed on you is called a gravity seal. It tricks your mind into thinking it weighs much more than it does. Because of this, your body will continue to grow faster and stronger like you were under that much weight. This way, when you release the seal with a simple 'kai' then you will be much faster. However, the incredibly special thing about the gravity seal is its level system. Your gravity seal is on level one at the moment, which is the lowest. You can change your gravity seal level, but I will tell you how some other time. Basically, if you are on level 1, it doubles the weight on your body. Level two triples, level three quadruples, and etcetera. Now, for training uses, you are not to remove this seal. Only in incredibly challenging fights that you can not win otherwise and are in peril do I permit you to release the gravity seals. The weights are less crucial, but try not to release those unless in a challenging fight. Now, your task of today is to be able to walk ten meters without falling over! When you feel like, with the gravity seals, you can walk completely normal and feel like you used to walk before getting the seals, then increase to level 2. I don't expect this for at least a year, so don't be disappointed if you don't get there too quickly. Now, when you make it inside, I'll be reading. See you then."

Finished this chapter...I would make it longer, but this is a perfect time to stop, it's 2 AM, and I don't want to set huge barriers for the rest of my chapters by making the first one huge. Anyways, leave some reviews, hope you liked the first chapter.