Chapter 1: A New Beginning

The life of a shinobi is hard and treacherous. Every day, they have to make choices that make or break them, whether physically or mentally. But, not for all ninja. One of them being a blonde haired boy named Naruto Uzumaki. The sun rose slowly to commence the beginning of a new day, and many shinobi had woken up early to start their daily routine. The day was just like any other day. Except for one thing. It was time for school, but unsurprisingly Naruto was late to wake up, again. The Uzumaki residence is usually up early in the morning, but Naruto was a very odd exception.

"When is that boy ever going to wake up?" Kushina clenched her fist, looking at Minato with a raised brow. "Why are you so calm about this? He's going to be late!"

"He'll wake up soon, I have faith in him." The blonde Hokage took a sip of his tea while reading the newspaper, unaware what the time actually was for his son to go to school.

"Ya know, you should be stricter with him! He is your son afterall." Minato gave a neutral look back at his wife.

"You don't have to worry about him Kushina. He'll wake up in due time, I believe in him." Kushina sighed and glanced back for a second. She had finished cooking the breakfast for her family and was only waiting for her son and daughter to get down from their bedrooms.

"You were always so lenient, huh Minato? But, I can't trust that he'll wake up. I'm going upstairs." Minato smirked.

"Sure thing. Do what you feel is best."

Kushina sighed as she placed the last meal on the table. After this, she began going upstairs to Naruto's room. A few seconds after that, a red-haired little girl came down from the stairs.

"Good morning father….." The little girl was Naruto's little five year old sister, Mina Uzumaki.

"Mina, come here and have some breakfast with us." Mina wiped her eyes and gave a yawn, stretching her arms out above her head. The little girl was still tired after just waking up, so her senses were lowered, but she quickly adjusted to the smell and sight of the breakfast on the table.

"So, I presume mother is going upstairs to wake up big brother Naruto?" Minato smiled at his daughter, nodding slowly at her remark.

"Yes, you are correct about that." Mina sighed, putting her hands together and closing her eyes. Her father realized what she was doing and also put his hands together.

"Thank you for the food." They both said in unison. They grabbed their chopsticks, beginning to chow down on the breakfast. Mina didn't grab her chopsticks though. Instead, she looked back at her father with a cheerful look.

"Mother and Bro have such similar personalities don't they?" Minato looked back, surprised at the sudden quote of his daughter.

"Yeah, you are right about that." Mina gave a glance back at the stairs.

"I hope they don't cause any more trouble. And I did clean his room afterall! Big bro should at least thank me every once and a while for the help of his little sister." Minato chuckled as Mina pouted about her recognition from her brother.

Kushina approached the oak wood door and pressed her ear against it, feeling if she could hear anything from the other side "No sound. I guess he's still asleep," She began to knock on the door, hoping that she could wake him up without creating much of a disturbance.

"Naruto, wake up… It's time for school," No response. Kushina realized that the soft approach wasn't going to cut it if she were to wake up her son. She then began to knock on the door, but talking in a more aggressive tone.

"Okay Naruto! I'm going to count to three and if you are not awake by then I will open this door and personally wake you up myself. One….. Two… Three…." Even after all three counts, there was still no noise coming from his room. Kushina had enough of playing around. She opened the door wide open. She would have walked up to Naruto to give him a punch he wouldn't forget, but Kushina stood there just to admire his room, simply because of how clean it was. She didn't expect the messiest boy in the house to have kept his room so clean; it almost lifted all the anger from her body. But unsurprisingly, Kushina is not one of those girls that are easy to convince and after a few seconds of admiring, she looked back at Naruto.

Kushina walked up to the baby like Naruto and clenched her fist "Naruto, you better wake up after this, cuz if you don't, I am going to be so MAD!" And with that, Kushina gave a punch directly aiming at the chest area.

"Accggh!" Naruto suddenly felt a sharp pain in stomach and he yelped in surprise. It was actually his mother, Kushina Uzumaki, waking him up with a painful punch to the stomach. Naruto clenched his belly in pain.

"Ayy! Naruto! How many times have I told you to get ready for school! You're going to be late again!" Kushina gave a stern look at her son. "This is the eighth time now!" The half-asleep Naruto slumped forward, stretching his arms and wiping his eyes. He slowly opened his eye and it adjusted to the light gleaming through the window. He looked at the clock.

"Wait…" It took a few seconds for the information to register in his brain, but it soon became so clear. "Oh I get it! I'm going to be late for-"

Kushina gave a slap directly at his cheek, this time with a bit more force than the punch before. "Of course you're going to be late! Now hurry up and get ready or else I'll give you a world of pain that you won't forget!" Naruto stared blankly at his mother and thought for a moment.

"Oh! Yeah! Oh DARNIT! I'M GONNA BE LATE!" At that instant Naruto got up from his bed and began rushing to get his things, quickly putting on his clothes, grabbing his ninja tool pack and goggles. In the slur, Naruto was unaware of the mess he was creating in the room that was clean a few seconds earlier.

'How ironic' Kushina thought 'Even if Naruto did end up cleaning his own room it would be worthless since he would've already messed it up anyway' She frowned at the thought, standing there as Naruto frantically grabbed and looked for everything he needed.

"So, I take it that mother has already woken up big brother Naruto?" Mina asked her father due to the entire ruckus upstairs.

"That's right…" Minato sighed nervously "And it's the eighth time this week. If Naruto keeps this up we'll need a new house for all the damage Kushina will cause." Mina chuckled at what her father said.

"Yup. Mother has always been so strong." She glanced back at her bowl as she realized that she had already finished her food, not noticing that her father was already in his hokage uniform.

Mina frowned "Aww, leaving already?" Minato gave a gentle smile.

"It's okay, I'll be home later this evening, don't worry." She smiled back and gave a thumbs up.

"Alright, I'll tell mother you already left." Minato nodded and just like that, he teleported out of their house. Mina smiled at what her father had just done, eyes gleaming in excitement and curiousity.

"So that's the Flying Raijin… How interesting."

Naruto opened the window of his room getting ready to leave. "Sorry ma! I'll be late for school!" Naruto quickly dashed out of the room and began heading to the academy, unaware about the chaos he made in his room when he left.

"Haaaa. He didn't even have breakfast yet…" Kushina sighed and looked around the room to see the mess his son had made. "Didn't even bother to clean up the mess he made. When that young man gets back we're going to have a nice talk…"

"Dammnit, how could I be so clueless? I'm late again!" Naruto dashed through the rooftops. The sky was cloudless and was emitting a bright blue aura, further accented by the sun that was shining brightly atop. He couldn't help but stop and stare for a few moments. "Wait, what am I doing! I'll be even more late than usual if I keep this up!" Naruto shook the feeling of admiration as he continued his journey atop the roof towards the academy. Unknown to him were two people watching him from a nearby tree, analyzing his every movement.

"So that's the ninetales brat? Why don't we just capture him right here and now? Our mission could end at this time, right now and yet you intend to drag this on further complicate things-"

"Just shut up already." The grey haired boy looked at his squabbling partner with dead eyes. "We shouldn't capture him now. It would be like declaring war against the entire hidden leaf, which will make our job of capturing him more increasingly harder. For now, we wait…" The dark violet haired girl nodded in agreement, but sighed, pouting about the possibilities. "But….." The boy looked back with a stern look "We'll just watch him for now, no need to be hasty about this. We need to capture him when no one is around. Not right here in the open" The girl nodded in agreement

"Yeah, you're probably right about that….."

In a few minutes, he arrived at the academy to see two students fighting, while others watched. Iruka was also their with a notepad watching the two fight "Wait, sparring?"

The blonde landed on a nearby tree and observed from a far "Wait, is that?" It was Sasuke and Shino fighting eachother. Sasuke dashed towards the Aburame and he tried to do a kick to the head. Shino dodged under, forcing his head to dodge with an awkward position, facing to the sky. He shot his head up when Sasuke began to activate his jutsu.

"Fire Style: Fire Ball Jutsu!" Sasuke put his hands together and inhaled, blowing quickly and releasing a large ball of flame. Shino dodged quickly just in the nick of time but did not realize Sasuke's shadow clone that come from behind the real one. The clone gave a direct kick to the head and Shino went falling to the ground. The Aburame coughed, before finally getting up

"Unsurprisingly, I lost again." Shino glanced back at Iruka, still with a few burns surrounding his body "But just because you are from a prestigious clan, it doesn't mean that you can get cocky." Sasuke smiled and tilted his head

"I could say the same for you, Aburame." The two fighters exchanged looks before they settled back with the rest of the classmates.

"Okay. Thank you both." Iruka wrote some notes into his paper and gave the signal to stop fighting. Naruto then saw that everyone began to cheer and clap.

"Ooh Sasuke! You're so cool!" A few girls began to squeal and admire Sasuke "Yeah! You're the best!" another bunch of students began to applaud on "He's so strong!" Amidst all the cheering, the Aburame came back and stood near his classmate and friend, Kiba Inuzuka. The Inuzuka turned toward the bug user and grinned.

"Wow Shino! You got beat real good. Too bad huh? We didn't even see that shadow clone appear." Shino grunted at his friend's remark and shook his head.

"No, that's an incorrect assumption. I only just realized what had happened when I got hit by his shadow clone." Kiba tilted his head in confusion.

"Yeah? And what's that supposed to mean?" Shino pointed his finger at his burns, giving the Inuzuka the assumption to look at them.

"That fire style jutsu was just a distraction. The real magic happened during when I was distracted by his attack." Kiba widened his eyes at his remark.

"Wait, what do you mean by distracted? When did that happen?" Shino sighed and gave his friend another look.

"It was when I ducked underneath his kick. My head faced towards the sky." The Aburame shot a look at the Uchiha, whom was surrounded by their classmates and girls alike. But, it only took me about half a second to shoot my head up. I can't believe he was able to summon a shadow clone so quickly, and without us realizing.

"Wait, then how was he able to do so without anyone noticing?-"

"He created the shadow clone right next to him." Shino looked back at Kiba and he could already read the expression of the Inuzuka's face.

That's incredible. He would need perfect sync and points tenth of a second timing in order to move simultaneously with the shadow clone. The Aburame continued.

"Then, he used the fire style jutsu to conceal the presence of the clone not only from me, but from our classmates. After that, all he needed to do was surprise me and the others after his jutsu dissipated. Since we were watching from the side, his fireball was the perfect way of hiding the presence of the clone." Kiba gave a glance back at the Uchiha and froze. Shino sighed and looked back at his friend.

"I hate to admit this Shino, but…" The Aburame raised a brow. "That guy is too skilled for the meanwhile." He then looked back at Sasuke and pointed his finger at him. "One day though, I will be skilled enough to defeat you Sasuke! You better not back down!" The Uchiha simply smiled in response.

"Sure… feel free to challenge me whenever you want. I don't mind…" Naruto's eyes twitched in both anger and jealousy.

"Tsk, showoff…. I'll show him!" He quickly landed in the training area infront of Sasuke "I challenge you Sasuke!" All of the other students looked at Naruto in confusion.

"Naruto. You know you can't beat Sasuke. You haven't won a single time." Ino snorted as she continued her remark. "And even if you were to become stronger, it still wouldn't be able to beat him" Sakura sighed and nodded in agreement.

"Yeah. I agree with Ino. Sasuke is an Uchiha, he's so strong, and so cool, and the perfect hus-, I mean ninja…" Another student gave a look back at Sakura.

"Yeah?! And so what if I didn't win!? I just have to try harder to defeat him now!" Naruto looked at the two gossiping girls with stern eyes.

"Yeah, he's right. Naruto is the son of the 4th Hokage afterall. He might stand a chance now!" All of the other students began to talk back and dispute about whom the winner might be. Iruka could see the restlessness of the students and could see that Naruto was itching for a fight.

"Class! Pipe down!" Iruka gave a stern look at all of the other loud students. The entire class grew silent. Sasuke was the first to speak up and break the still air.

"Naruto, you can't fight me. Sorry, but not only are you late but I'm not even sure that Iruka Sensei would agree to it." Sasuke sighed and gave an almost disappointed look

"Oh come on Iruka Sensei! Please! Canwecanwecanwecanwecanwe? Just for me? Your favorite student?" Iruka gave a stern look to Naruto. The teacher sighed and gave a glance back at Naruto.

"Naruto… Not only are you late for my class, but you disrupted the decent flow of our lesson." Naruto opened his mouth to speak. Nothing came out from his voice box except sadness and nothingness.

"But…" The blonde shot his head up, in anticipation of what his teacher could possibly say. "You may be a fool, and you may skip classes sometimes, and you may be late to school, and you-" Naruto gave an annoyed look at his teacher. Iruka noticed what he was doing and shut his mouth. "But… I feel this is a great opportunity for you guys to learn the importance of being a good sport, being humble, and most of all, to never give up." Naruto gave the widest grin he had in a while. Iruka smiled at the sudden change in mood and atmosphere. The students were slowly beginning to understand. "And that's why Naruto, I will allow you to spar with Sasuke."

The blonde bounced up and down in joy and Sasuke smiled slowly. Iruka chuckled nervously and another thought also appeared in his mind. Also, your father would kill me if I didn't give you the proper guidance as a teacher and didn't allow you to participate in sparring events.

The Uchiha gave confident but cautious look "Okay Naruto. Bring it on!" Naruto jumped back and nodded.

"I'll defeat you Sasuke!" The Uchiha looked back. And put his hand out, giving an intimidating yet determined taunt using his hand.

"Sure, whatever you say." Naruto put his hands together. He could feel the adrenaline pumping around his body. He was getting excited and he didn't want to wait for any longer. Naruto was going to explode with excitement in any second.

"Shadow Clone Jutsu!" Suddenly, two shadow clones appeared beside him, just as excited as Naruto was. Sasuke was also excited to test out his combat skills with a much more skilled opponent. Finally, a real challenge. The Uchiha put down his hand, and the two stared at eachother, focused on each and every movement of their opponents. It was only a second, but it was the longest second the ninja's had experienced.

"Okay, may the sparring match…. Begin!" Iruka shouted loud and clear. Naruto and Sasuke dashed toward eachother at full force with their fists clenched, they began their fight…