DISCLAIMER: NARUTO ISN'T MINE. ALL RIGHTS TO KISHIMOTO.

The citizens of Konoha were greeted by a bizarre sight in the morning. A 12 year old spiky blonde haired boy with a bucket of paint was running away from a bunch of chunin, cackling madly while taunting them. "Give it rest! You guys can never catch me, HAHAH!"

"GET BACK HERE YOU STUPID BRAT!" one of the chunin yelled after him while panting slightly. This scene wasn't really that unfamiliar as everyone knew about Naruto Uzumaki, the annoying pranking delinquent who would always be up to some or the other mischief. Those who knew about the secret about that boy were fuming. 'That demon dares to defile the Hokage monument after what it did to our village! The Hokage can't possibly overlook this outrage!'

The blonde boy was still cackling madly as the 4 chunin continued to chase him. 'Well these losers are not even close to catching me, this is getting boring. Time to lose 'em then' thought Naruto. He turned a corner and just before they came around, he used the transformation technique to change the appearance of the bucket he was carrying into his image and threw it hard to make it look it he jumped to the rooftops and used the cloaking technique to hide. The chunin fell for his misdirection completely and jumped to the roof tops to search for him. Naruto came out of his hiding grinning widely. 'Wow that was way too easy!' he thought with glee.

"You think you can get away with what you did you Naruto!?". The said blonde snapped his neck behind in shock at being caught. Behind him was a tanned tall man with a scar across his nose wearing the standard hidden leaf chunin flak vest. "GAH! How did you find me Iruka Sensei!? What are you even doing here!?" yelled Naruto even though he knew exactly why he was there. "Why aren't you in class Naruto and why the hell did you do that to the Hokage monument you idiot!" Iruka yelled back. "Eh, I'll be a better Hokage than all of them and I just thought everyone should know that." answered the blonde boy with a petulant expression. Iruka just sighed at this. 'I get it no one pays any attention to him and many even hate him but a prank this big will not go unpunished by the Hokage. He has so much skill and yet he never bothers to learn at the academy. Four damn chunin and they couldn't touch him, and how the hell did he paint so much area without being noticed anyway?' Iruka wondered silently.

Evening that day Naruto was fuming slightly while washing down all the paint on the Hokage monument. Iruka noticed this and decided to talk to him so he might calm down and do it faster. "Calm down Naruto, you painted all over the mountain so it's only right you should be cleaning it up. By the way the graduation exam is next week and you should start preparing for it soon. I know you can graduate easily if you put your mind to it so I want you to focus on the exam okay?" Iruka said in a kind voice. Naruto looked up with an annoyed expression. "I know about the graduation exam sensei! I took it three times before remember? I don't know why people bother with it, it's a waste of time. Besides who even uses the Clone technique anyway? It's so lame an amateur can see through that." Iruka sighed at this, because the three jutsus taught at the academy were not taught to be used on the field at all.

The substitution jutsu was taught so all the genin would know how to project their chakra and apply chakra to any object outside of their and then manipulate it from a distance. The transformation jutsu was the most basic chakra shape manipulation exercise and also a great base for genjutsu as the jutsu required a high degree visualization and projecting this onto their own chakra. The clone jutsu was basically to exercise all of their tenketsu at once as the jutsu required the user to project their chakra simultaneously from all of their tenketsu and use shape manipulation and visualization technique to create the doppelganger. This was devised by the Nidaime Hokage to have a very strong base for all the ninja that would graduate. Iruka had explained this to Naruto many times and every single time, the boy didn't bother listening.

Iruka saw the sun starting to dip low over the horizon and decided to speed things up. "Tell you what Naruto, I'll buy you ramen tonight from Ichiraku's if you finish faster. How would you like that?" Naruto suddenly stopped and looked up to Iruka with an expression that made Iruka's heart clench a little. He knew how much that meant to Naruto. Naruto would do whatever someone told him to do as long as they acknowledged his presence and listened to him. Iruka often found himself relating himself to the blonde as he was very much the same once before. "Really Iruka sensei? You mean it?" Naruto almost shouted. Iruka nodded with a small smile at the excited blone. "YES! Thats so awesome Iruka sensei! You're the best!" The blonde boy shouted again.

Teuchi was greeted by the familiar sight of the blonde boy coming into his shop with a hungry expression and a huge grin. He smiled slightly at his favourite customer. The old ramen chef never understood why many people would hate such a innocent and kind child. He had seen the boy since he was six years old when the Hokage first brought him to his stall. He was a little wary of the Kyuubi's vessel at first but after seeing the boy for himself he decided that there was no way this was the dreaded fox. The third Hokage had explained that the fox was imprisoned within the boy with a sealing jutsu by the late Fourth Hokage. He had seen the boy defending small children against bullies twice his size. He had seen him give his money to poor people out on the street even though he was an orphan on stipend himself.

"Well Naruto what will be this tim... oh Iruka! You've come here to treat the boy to ramen is it?" the chef asked good naturedly. The scarred chunin nodded with a smile and sat down next to the blonde boy. They waited for the ramen to be made while Iruka listened to the boy talking about anything and everything, nodding and smiling kindly. The ramen arrived and Naruto stopped, with a slightly worshipful expression he stared at his ramen for a few seconds before digging in with gusto. Iruka finished his own bowl while Naruto ordered another. Instead of doing the same, Iruka decided to give Naruto another talking to so that he would take his graduation test seriously this time. "Naruto, you gotta study properly for this test so that you can become a great ninja okay? I know it may be boring to you now but all this are the basics and you need to know this if you ever want to become a ninja. I know you have a lot of potential so try harder okay?" Naruto frowned at this. He was trying his best to master what was taught in the academy but he always got them all wrong in the written test. His taijutsu was better and he could hold his own against everyone save a few. Only Kiba and the broody kid Sasuke were faster than him while Chouji was stronger. His ninjutsu wasn't anything great. The transformation jutsu was his favourite and his own Sexy jutsu was something he was extremely proud of. The substitution jutsu was also not that bad in his opinion. He could replace himself five times out of ten. The clone jutsu was his worst and he could never figure out why exactly he couldn't get it to work. Always his clones were sickly and dead looking and sometimes they would just disappear after a few seconds without warning. He wanted Iruka sensei to be proud of him and that's why he would never admit it to him that he failed in the graduation tests before even though he tried his best in all of them. 'If Iruka sensei finds out that I don't have the talent, he will be disappointed in me and he might start ignoring me like before again' Naruto thought and hence as usual he laughed it off in an effort to change the topic. "Meh, I'll do just fine sensei you worry too much. After all I'm gonna be Hokage someday and the future Hokage can't be stuck in the academy all the time right?" the blonde said with his usual bright smile. Iruka sighed at this waited for him to finish. He paid for the ramen and turned to the boy. "All right then Naruto, promise me you will study hard now. I don't want you slacking off okay?" Iruka said sternly. Naruto nodded before saying "Yes sensei, I promise!"

"Naruto Uzumaki please step forward." The white haired assistant called out. Naruto gulped and hoped that they wouldn't ask him to demonstrate the clone jutsu. "Now then Naruto, please demonstrate the clone jutsu and you pass" Iruka instructed him. Naruto felt his stomach drop at that. He felt he was gonna fail again but he tried to ignore his dread and proceeded to do the jutsu. 'No way a stupid jutsu is gonna stand in my way of becoming Hokage!' he thought. He held up the ram started to overflow from its natural pathways and flowed to his tenketsu. Unfortunately for the blonde, in his tense state he drew too much chakra and wisps started to become visible outside his body as he struggled to maintain the same amount of chakra output from all of his tenketsu. Both the examiners saw this with widened eyes. After a few seconds of struggle, he thought he had the same amount of chakra all over his body and thus he expelled it and tried to manipulate it's shape by visualizing himself. However, the jutsu was badly overloaded and hence as usual the clone was sickly and pale. Iruka wondered why Naruto used only the ram seal for the jutsu. The hand sign sequence was actually tiger-boar-ox-dog. He was wondering how in the world Naruto even managed to do the shape manipulation with only a ram sign. What he didn't know was that his assistant Mizuki taught him separately during the ninjutsu classes and thus Naruto didn't use the original seal sequence because Mizuki had told him that the ram worked better. The innocent Naruto would follow Mizuki's advice simply because he would say all of this with a kind smile and tell him he was doing great.

He looked at the clone and sighed. "I'm sorry Naruto but you fail" the scar faced man said with a frown. Naruto felt his world shattering around him as he couldn't pass the graduation exam again. "Come on Iruka, he did make a clone. Granted it's not in the best condition but it's better than some who couldn't do it at all right?" Mizuki said kindly. Naruto looked up with hope but Iruka just shook his head saying that it wasn't good enough. Naruto started to walk out of the class dejectedly. On his way outside he heard some of the adults talking about him.

"Ah, so the boy didn't graduate huh? Thank goodness!"

"Whew, the demon isn't going to be a ninja after all. What a relief!"

"Bah, as if someone so talentless could ever hope to become a ninja"

He always wondered how people would talk about him so cruelly while he could hear them so easily. The blonde didn't know that his long exposure to the potent chakra of the Kyuubi had given him enhanced senses and the adults had no idea that he could hear them. He held his head low as more thoughts started to intrude his head.

How people always kicked him out of shops, how no one would even look at him and those who did had those terrible, cruel eyes. This downward spiral was all too familiar to the blonde and he usually managed to stave off this line of thought by pranking someone or visiting the old man Hokage. But today there was no such relief and his thoughts started to take on a more hateful form.

Why did the villagers hate him anyway? What the hell had he done to them? He had always tried to smile and laugh so that they would stop staring at him with those cruel stares. He had unknowingly started to prank people so they would at least acknowledge him. He wasn't a piece of rock or a wall that everyone would ignore, he always argued. He had asked the Hokage why people would do this and the Hokage would just shake his head and change the topic. The Hokage had told him to ignore it and believe in himself. When he felt ignored or invisible he would repeat the same mantra again and again. "I'm Naruto Uzumaki and I'll be Hokage. Then people would finally acknowledge me and respect me." The old man Hokage had told him to show kindness and compassion to others because that was what a Hokage would do. So Naruto started to do just that even though he hated the villagers and their treatment. It was hard at first. He wanted to punch the shop keeper for throwing him out. He wanted to kick the adult who sneered at him in disgust. He wanted to spoil the vegetables of the vendor who screamed at him to get out. But he held up the act of kindness because he was told to by the one person who was always nice to him and who had helped him so much. He wore the mask of the laughing, kind boy for so long, he didn't know how else to be