AN: Those who read the first chapter... It may almost seem as if the summary was wrong considering nothing happened and Naruto just seems suddenly better than usual. But rest assured they Question Naruto's abilities this time! So the woods scene and the Sandaime+Iruka question Naruto scene is in here. Also you may get some more explanation on some of those things that make my Naruto story different. Also I made a tiny mistake last chapter. I said Mizuki arrived first then ended it. That was a typo. Iruka arrived first just like in the anime/manga.
.oOo.
It was not a reassuring scene that Iruka walked in on. Naruto wasn't doing anything evil or kyuubi like or acting like a traitor to the village. He was just sitting there with the scroll. That was possibly worse than overt hostility. In the ninja world, that meant he was waiting for someone. 'Wait wait wait.' Iruka berated himself. 'This is Naruto. If anything he was tricked into doing this by some dumb-ass with illusions of grandeur power-wise'
"Hey Iruka-sensei!" Naruto yelled. He had decided that the best course of action was to blame everything on Mizuki because now he was positive this was either a set up or a traitor-in-action. There was no love lost between him and Konoha but his friends live there. Yes his FRIENDS live there. Not his 'precious people'. Stupid-Naruto called people his precious people. He was WAAAAY past that. So he'd stop the traitor. He kept up the Charade. "Am I top of the class now Iruka sensei?!"
'Yup. All thoughts confirmed' thought Iruka as Naruto proceeded to unknowingly deny any and all accusations of doing this himself for his own gain. He had to know what was going on though so he spoke up. "Um not to be blunt Naruto but what the hell are you talking about?"
Naruto let his face fall keeping up the act. "Mizuki-sensei said that I was still near the bottom of the class... He gave me this super-cool extra credit assignment to get better than Sasuke... That bastard." He for one thought his acting was flawless.
Iruka knew that this meant that Mizuki was probably either a traitor or one of the Kyuubi-brat crowd. That kinda hurt. They had been friends since childhood. Maybe he wasn't completely crazy?
Mizuki chose that moment as the perfect one to jump out of a tree and throw a few kunai hoping to pin Iruka to the convenient near-by hut. Unluckily for him Naruto had been expecting the traitor to show up and set up one of the many maneuvers he had thought up with his kage bunshin. He created one and then had it kawarimi out with Iruka thus saving him from kunai-in-leg syndrome.
When the various chakra smokes cleared a unharmed Iruka and Naruto were facing Mizuki who had a couple monstrous shuriken.
Mizuki looked at them. Looked at the shack. Looked back at them. He cocked his head to the side. "Okay I give. Why is no one stuck to the hut? Painfully."
Not wanting to give anything away to anyone Naruto spoke up. "Didn't you see Iruka kawarimi?" Iruka shot him a questioning look knowing he did no such thing. Naruto gave him the universal sign for 'be quiet dumb-ass!'
Mizuki was unimpressed with this... "Okay ya know. Screw all of this. Give me the damn scroll so no one has to die. You were a means to an end and that's all you need to know. Now, scroll please."
"Now now Mizuki sensei... We say otherwise." With a quick cross hand seal, though Naruto felt he could probably do it seal-less, 500 clones popped into existence. Naruto punched one in the face light enough so it didn't dispel. "We are a LOT better than what beat Iruka-sensei. Can you handle that?" Gotta love scare tactics. The next fifteen minutes left Mizuki battered, bruised, and unconscious.
Naruto walked forward and used his special henge to turn a clone into some rope and hog tied Mizuki. "This guy has officially made my list of people with bastard on the end of their names. Right up there with Sasuke and that fat old lady who sells me crappy weapons."
Iruka face-faulted. Trying to betray the village and kill you was certainly not a good way to stay off that kind of list. "Alright Naruto. We still need to talk to the Sandaime about this."
Naruto did not need to act to get his next line out perfectly. "Aww Shit."
.oOo.
Naruto was currently shuffling his feet as he and Iruka waited outside the Sandaime's office at about 12:30 at night. The bitchy secretary finally let them in.
"Okay Naruto. Iruka tells me you did WAAAY better than expected on the genin exam and then proceeded to learn an A-rank kinjutsu and defeat an upper level chuunin." Sandaime didn't mince words apparently.
"Well," Naruto was currently debating the merits of bringing the Kyuubi into it, he decided the asshole was gonna get outed eventually and spoke up. "I blame Kyuubi."
The effects were instantaneous. All the color drained out of both the Hokage and Iruka's faces and four ANBU captains materialized out of thin air somehow. "Damn gramps. You got this place wired so that whenever I say kyuubi four ANBU appear?"
Naruto commented. Four more ANBU shunshined in. "I'm hoping that was a coincidence gramps?"
Most everyone was too shocked to question anybody. Naruto let them regain their composure. The Hokage made a split second decision having figured that if Naruto wasn't going crazy and killing everyone that one of the stupid villagers had gotten too creative with the whole 'Demon-brat' spiel. He dismissed the ANBU who had been a coincidence and not a Kyuubi word detector squad. Not that such a thing existed... Really. "Okay Naruto. I'm assuming you have some sort of earth shattering explanation that will shatter the way we saw you previously?"
"Right in one gramps." Naruto responded.
Iruka was still mumbling words like "not supposed to know." and "Where'd my idiot buddy go?" The Hokage continued, "I feared that such was likely. When people put you and the Kyuubi together awful things are bound to happen. Well awful to those that you don't like at least."
"Want the short explanation or the long drawn out earth shattering explanation?" The Hokage shot him a look. "Okay fine! I'll give you the long one."
"Well it all started when I was a baby. You see, when Kyuubi was sealed into me he immediately realized he wasn't getting out. He was slightly familiar with jinchuurikis and decided that how I acted and how strong I was reflected back on him. He took a look farther down the line and decided that my personality left lots to be desired. He used some odd super demon chakra or something to alter my personality. He Split it. Can you hear the capital letter in that one? Basically what he did was make me into a Haruno temporarily. He gave one part of me all the intelligence and mischievousness and general Narutoness you know and love and even used some of that magic demon chakra to increase my sense of strategy, tactics, and intelligence even more." He took a long pause.
"Apparently he fucked up big time though. The Naruto he was conditioning to never see the light of day managed to gain mental dominance and that's where you get the stupid, brash, border-line retard Naruto that's been running around for the last twelve or so years. The Kyuubi was furious. He had expected the new me to be a ninja and use the intelligence he had gifted me to train and be the best there was so that he could look good. Unfortunately for me and Kyuubi it was retard-Naruto that was running around. Just before the genin exams Stupid-naruto was at a point of mental weakness. Don't ask me why I just took advantage of it," He stopped again and gave them a slightly pitying look, "at this point in time the Kyuubi is killing your Naruto. Don't ask me how but he's gone. What you see is what you get so If you still want to be friends I'm still Naruto. I'm brighter and more creative and all-around better but I'm still the Naruto you know. We have the same memories because we are technically just a really odd case of MPD or Multiple Personality Disorder but now the other one's gone."
He paused again. "Any questions?" Apparently it was a good if immensely shocking explanation and they just gave him funny looks.
"I'm inclined to believe you Naruto. The Kyuubi was very vain where power and status were involved and I can see that desire to not appear weak by having a strong host. But you say he's changed your personality? Can he do that again to make you go on a homicidal rampage? Or otherwise corrupt you?" The Hokage voiced his doubts.
"Nope. It was a one time deal. He could only fuck with my head back when I was an easily molded baby. So like a said, the Naruto you see is the Naruto you get."
"You've given us a lot to think about Naruto... But nothing dangerous obviously. I just ask you to keep your knowledge of the Kyuubi on the down low."
Both Naruto and Iruka got shocked looks on their faces. Then looked at each other and mouthed 'down low?'. The Hokage noticed this exchange and shouted "I can be hip!"
There was a muffled voice from outside the office. "No you can't Hokage-sama!" yelled his secretary. "Shut up Mikoto-chan!" The Hokage yelled back petulantly.
Shocked and slightly disturbed by this scene of un-Hokage like behavior both Iruka and Naruto walked silently out of the man's office.
.oOo.
AN: Surprised I'm actually updating properly? If you've read my other fics you'd know my updates are usually sporadic and unreliable. Today though I'm very much in the mood of the writer and am still writing more as I upload this. I forget if I was supposed to explain something here so PM me if there's anything you don't understand.
