Naruto: Search of the Spirit Shrines

Summary: A 5 year old Naruto accidently stumbled upon an ancient shrine, and he was amazed by the knowledge of the shrine and vowed to find all the shrine in the world to gain more knowledge about these shrines.

A/N: In this story Naruto will be smart, not as smart as Shikamaru but not that dumb as well. He will have all basic knowledge as the other kids.

Chapter 1: The Bear Shrine


It was late at night, silence was everywhere and it was quite peaceful. This peace was broken the sound of footsteps. A five year old boy was running for his life, behind him a mob of villagers carrying flaming torches, brooms and pitchforks.

"Don't let him escape!" one villager yelled

"Catch the Demon brat" another yelled

"Kill that thing!" shouts like this were heard coming from the villagers. The boy ran and ran until he ran deep inside the forest. He turned around and saw that the villagers were not following him anymore. But he was now lost and all alone in the forest. He grew scared and frightened but kept going forward.

"I am Uz-Uzumaki Naruto. I-I don't get scared." he said to himself but his legs was shaking and hands were clasped with each other. He kept walking forward until he slipped and fell in to a hole.

"Ouch" he rubbed his head and saw that this was no hole it was a tunnel. He saw light at the end of the tunnel, he shrugged his shoulders and walked towards the light. A few minutes later he saw the most amazing sight before him. A beautiful lake with statues surrounding the area. It looked like a shrine. Across the lake he saw a large statue. He jumped into the lake and swam across to the statue. It was a Giant statue of a Bear. Below the statue there was something written:

The Bear

A Kind and Powerful animal.

Kind and humble to its allies.

Ferocious and dangerous to its enemies.

Naruto was amazed by this and looked around the cave. He found an opening near one of the statues. Inside he found just one scroll. He opened and read:

The bear, a spirit of the wild, who helped this world fight against the threat of the demon the planned to invade and destroy this world. Along with his fellow Sprits of The wild, they destroyed the king of the demons.

The bear is kind and gentle its allies and crushes its enemies will all his power.

"Wow!" Naruto had sparkles in his eyes.

"I wonder how many Sprits were there" He wondered

He walked around the shrine a bit more and suddenly a thought occurred to him,

"Wait a minute...If the Sprits destroyed all the demons then, how did the Kyuubi attacked the village." He wondered and to find the answers he looked around the cave but found no more clues.

"So Tired!" He yawned and drifted off to sleep.

Naruto felt warn as if someone covered him with a blanket of fur. He woke up and felt a soft breeze across his face and unknowingly just followed it. A few minutes later he found himself at the gates of Konoha. He just blinked stupidly. One of the guards of the gate suddenly found Naruto just standing and staring.

"Naruto? What are you doing here?" Kotetsu, The ninja on Gate guard duty asked

"I don't know" he replied

Kotetsu just looked at him like he was crazy,

"Well... Go back home it's still early in the morning" Kotetsu said.

Naruto just dumbly nodded and left. On his way he thought how did he ever get there when he was lost and in the cave and only one answer came to his mind, The spirit of The Bear, with that thought in his mind he smiled all the way home.

The Next day he went to the Hokage, as he waked to the Hokage's office, he saw the people glaring at him and calling him names. He was very angry at that, He did nothing to them so why does everybody treat his like garbage. He had enough and was about to shout at them but he suddenly remembered the inscription on the statue of the bear spirit.

'Kind and Humble to allies' he thought

'Well...they are my villagers so they are allies' with that though he just smiled and left for the office.

In then office, the Hokage was smoking pipe and doing his paperwork. When suddenly Naruto busted in.

"YO Jiji!" he smiled brightly. The Hokage looked up and smiled

"So, what can I do for you Naruto-kun?"

"I was wondering if you know anything about something called the spirits of the wild."

"Spirits of the wild?" He thought deeply "Hmm... I have never heard of them"

"Really!" Naruto was shocked "Ok then... See ya later!"

He walked out of the office and went to the training grounds.

"Well if the Hokage doesn't know about the Spirits then they must be pretty old"

In the training fields he saw a ninja training with a bo stick he was amazed by him. The ninja noticed Naruto which frightened him and he ran away.

'Ok...I need to start training and i know just what to start with' he secretly smiled and went to the forest. Later at night he crafted himself a homemade staff. He was very impressed with his work. He observed his work very carefully and shouted

"Yatta! I did it!"

Every day he would watch the ninja train and copy his moves and practice it. Someday he would watch the ninja do taijutsu and sometimes he would practice with his Bo staff.

Time skip: 5 years.

Naruto is finally getting to enter the Ninja Academy. He was very excited, there at the academy he saw the children being dropped off at school by their parents. He envied those, he always wished he had his parents with him but the Hokage told that died protecting the village, so he was proud of his parents. He noticed the parent's telling their kids to watch out for him and stay away, this made him sad and he walked inside the classroom.

Naruto saw all the students in the class come in.

'Whoa! All the clan heirs in the same class. This will be interesting' he thought

In the class were some civilians along with the clan heirs - Nara Shikamaru, Akimichi Choji, Yamanaka Ino, Inuzuka Kiba, Aburane Shino, Hyuuga Hinata and Uchiha Sasuke.

A/N: I am going to skip the academy and move along to the graduation. In the academy it's basically the same as always, insulted by classmates and all that stuff. Naruto kept his Bo staff training a secret from others so no one in the academy knows about it. I'm not sure how long academy lasts Sooooo...

Time skip: 3 years

Today was the day of graduations, everybody was excited except for Naruto. You see yesterday, Iruka sensei told the class what jutsu to perform to graduate and among that was the Clone jutsu and Naruto sucked at that.

Finally Naruto's turn came to do the jutsu,

"Ok Naruto, so far so good, just do the clone jutsu and you will pass" Iruka said

Naruto gulped 'OK Ok you can do it...just need to Focus"

"Bushin no Jutsu" What appeared was a dead pale clone of Naruto lying on the ground,

Iruka sighed "Sorry Naruto but you fail"

"Bu-But Iruka sensei"

"Come on Iruka, the kid did enough maybe you could pass him?" Mizuki told Iruka

"Sorry, But my decision is final." Iruka said,

Naruto sighed and just walked out depressed, Iruka felt bad but he had to do what he did, he could no show favoritism to anyone.

Naruto was depressed and when he heard the parents saying stuff like 'serves him right' 'why did the Hokage even let him join the academy' he got even more depressed. Among the crowds was Hinata who looked at Naruto and was sad for him.

Mizuki came to Naruto and told him to follow him. They went to an unknown location.

"You know Naruto, I can give an alternate exam and make you a ninja." Mizuki smiled

"Really!" Naruto's hopes were high. Mizuki whispered something to his ear and left.

That Night at the Hokage tower, all the ninjas were gathered.

"Go find Naruto and bring him here" The Hokage ordered 'Naruto what made you do this"

Naruto was in a Cabin In The woods and was practicing ninjutsu when all of a sudden Iruka showed up and boinked him on the head.

"You Idiot! Do you know what you did!" Iruka screamed

"Whaa... I was just doing my alternate exam to be a ninja? Why did you hit me" Naruto asked while rubbing his head.

"Alternate exam? Naruto there is no alternate exam! Who told you that?" Iruka asked

"Mizu..."Naruto did not get to finish his sentence when a shuriken attacked them. Iruka carried Naruto and avoided the shuriken.

"Mizuki stop... We got him! No need for extreme measures" Iruka told him

Mizuki just laughed "Oh and why not? He is after all a demon and who you think told him to steal the scroll. Huh!"

Iruka was shocked at this.

"De-demon? What are you talking about?" Naruto spoke

"Oh, you wanna know huh? You wanna know why the villagers..." Mizuki was interrupted by Iruka

"MIZUKI STOP"

"WHY SHOULD I"

"IT'S FORBIDDEN"

"WELL HE WANTS TO KNOW DONT YOU NARUTO, YOU WANT TO KNOW WHY THE VILLAGERS HATE YOU" Naruto could only nod

"MIZUKI NOOO" Iruka shouted and jumped at Mizuki who avoided and kicked him back. Mizuki unhooked the Windmill shuriken on his back and looked at Naruto

"THE VILLAGERS HATE YOU BECAUSE YOU ARE THE KYUUBI REINCARNATED YOU DEMON! NOW DIEE!" Mizuki threw the shuriken to Naruto.

Naruto was shocked by this and just closed his eyes and ready for death but it never came. Iruka protected him.

"W-w-why" Naruto asked

"b-because you a-are not the Fo-Fox. RUN Naruto" Iruka told him, Naruto just nodded and ran.

"Tch…Iruka, I'll get you for that later" Mizuki told and went after Naruto.

In the forest Iruka suddenly showed up next to Naruto and asked for the scroll but Naruto just head-butted him. Both crashed in the ground.

"How did you know I was not Iruka" Suddenly Iruka poofed and transformed to Mizuki

Naruto just smiled and said "Because I am Iruka" and poofed into Iruka.

"Tch Iruka... Why are you protecting the demon, he killed your parents!" Mizuki said

"Yeah, the Demon did kill my parents..." Iruka said while looking down on the ground.

Naruto was hiding behind the trees and heard that and was now depressed until

"..But Naruto is different, don't you see," Iruka looked Mizuki in the eye "The village treats him like a pariah but he never fights back or say anything to them, he always tries to help out but the villagers don't let him, he is the kindest person in the village i know, If he were to be a demon he would have killed them already. Naruto is Naruto and Kyuubi is Kyuubi They are both different, don't ever say they are the same!"

Mizuki was very irritated by now "Say what you want but you are dying RIGHT NOW!"

Iruka closed his eyes while Mizuki threw the windmill Shuriken at him but it never came. He saw Naruto standing there and Mizuki on the ground.

"YOU WILL STAY AWAY FROM IRUKA SENSEI OR I WILL BEAT YOU UP!" Naruto said.

Mizuki laughed and said "you think you'll be able to defeat me alone!"

"Who says I'm alone" Naruto put his hands to a cross sign and "TAJUU KAGE BUSHIN NO JUTSU"

Mizuki was surrounded by hundreds of Naruto clones, each of them had a Bo staff.

"MIZUKI GET READY FOR THE BEATING OF YOU LIFE" all the Naruto said together,

All that could be heard as Mizuki's scream.

"Wow, Naruto that was awesome!" Iruka said,

"Yeah well... I'm Kind and Humble to My allies but Ferocious and dangerous to my enemies" Naruto laughed.

"Wow... Where did you hear that and when did you learn to use a Bo staff?"

"I have been practicing with it since I was 5," Naruto smiled but it did not last long,

"Since the exam was fake, I guess I'm not a ninja" Naruto looked down

"Close your eyes" Iruka said

'What?"

"Close your eyes"

Naruto closed them and felt something being tied to his forehead, when he opened he saw Iruka without his forehead protector and realized he was wearing it. This shocked him.

"Wh-Why?"

"Well, you did save my Life" Iruka said and Naruto just Hugged him.

In the Hokage's Office all the ninja's were gathered

"Hokage-sama, we did not find him!" a ninja said

"Don't worry, he's been found, you're all dismissed" the Hokage just smiled

-X-X-X-


A/N: In this story Naruto's dream is not to be a Hokage but to find all the shrines of the spirits and find out why a demon like Kyuubi walked this earth. And Naruto has been king to all his fellow students some appreciate him and some just brushed him off. He has some friends but majority hate him.

Thanks for reading.