Uzumaki Naruto, Sorceror for hire.

xxx

Naruto's dissappearance hadn't caused much of a ripple in Konoha's day to day life. Sure the Hokage had been really upset about it, downright furious after he interrogated the matron of the orphanage he'd placed Naruto in, and there had been grumbles around October tenth, when the villagers suddenly realized that their scapegoat had gone astray, but all together, not much worth mentioning.

Naruto's re-appearance, however, had caused a rather large stir, especially when the cloak-wearing boy ('where had he gotten one in his size?' the whispers ran) had plopped himself down at a ramen stand that was on the verge of falling into debt and being closed down, 'Ichiraku', ordering a bowl of ramen, and paying with a handful of small gold coins.

That had nearly caused a riot of a very different sort, but Ichiraku-san was very large, and had already swept the coins into his apron and was glaring at the gathered crowds, so they decided on taking a different route towards the goal of some of those gold coins for themselves. But when they turned to collectively leap at Naruto, they found that he was simply no longer there.

Sandaime-sama had been so relieved at the return of the Yondaime's legacy that he had left his tower, and coincidentally all of his paperwork, behind to track him down and offer to let him join the Academy early.

And he had been politely turned down.

That... well of course Naruto was free to choose his own path in life, but he'd really been banking on the fourth's legacy becoming a shinobi. Had bets set up about it with the clan heads of various ninja families and everything. So he'd shrugged and apparently accepted it. And found reasons to 'run into' Naruto once or twice a day for the next few weeks, and each time strike up a conversation that would inevitably lead to 'are you sure you don't want to join the academy?' So it wasn't exactly subtle. Sue him. He was pretty much out of practice with subtlety and trickery, having gotten used to being able to just order people to do what he wanted. If he wanted Kakashi to squawk like a chicken, or for Gai to run five hundred laps around Konoha in a pink leotard, they would. They would privately curse his name afterwards, but they would do it, and do it exactly to the letter. Of course, he would never make such unreasonably pointless demands, so the point was moot.

Still, it worked, and after a few weeks of annoyance Naruto broke and agreed. After all, Hokage-sama had never said anything about graduating from the ninja academy, now had he?

It was actually simpler than he'd expected to sabotage his own education in the ninja arts. The instructors had been unusually helpful in the matter, grading him especially harshly, sending him the most difficult questions and tests, pointedly refusing to offer him any aid or correct his (many) mistakes, and unwilling to look below the surface of the matter.

At least before Iruka had been instated as a new instructor, anyway.

Naruto... well he didn't hate the man. He was just doing his job. Doing it a bit to well for Naruto's tastes. He seemed to instinctually grasp the fact that Naruto was more than he let on, and would take the time to correct his Taijutsu form, make sure he memorized the handsigns correctly, graded him fairly, only sent him tests and questions that could feasibly be completed by one of the others in his class... Naruto had begun to think that the man was Sarutobi's last-ditch effort to make him take being a ninja seriously. As though he would...

All that really meant was that he had to make sure he failed the graduation exam. Spectacularly.

The first time, they'd just run a typical obstacle course that the testee had to make it through silently. A subtle cantrip or two, and the entire thing had fallen apart noisily as he passed through it. His loud (and false) objections to being failed had been ignored.

The second time, they'd tested Kawarimi no jutsu. But instead of replacing himself with the log, he'd managed to set both it and himself on fire with an apparently misplaced tora handsign. The hours spent recovering from the burns hadn't been fun, but it had been worth it.

The third time, he was finally in a class of children all his own age, but didn't much care. Third time was the charm, as they said, so it wasn't like he'd be seeing them ever again anyway. Although he did have problems keeping his title of 'dead-last' against that lazy Nara. He just had to fail once more and then withdraw from the academy after a few days. After all, having been so spectacularly horrible in the academy, it was obvious that the ninja life was not for him, no?

This time, the test was on the Bunshin jutsu. A simple, intangible clone. This time, he decided to make his failure truly spectacular.

The two Bunshin looked normal enough. But just before Iruka could happily announce "Pass", they fell to their knees, clutching at their heads and moaning. The instructors watched in awe as their skulls bulged, the skin over them tearing, then the bone beneath shattering as the Bunshin brains exploded violently outwards, covering the room in immaterial gore as the false bodies twitched on the ground. Some of them were in varying states of pale and greenish at the display. He'd really outdone himself this time, hadn't he? Just a simple illusion spell and a twitch of the wand he kept inside his cloak instead of the larger and less easily-hidden staff, and they all saw what he wanted them to see.

"Uzumaki Naruto... Fail."

He had to supress the urge to smile and whistle cheerily as he left, ignoring the way Mizuki-sensei had oddly stood up and declared that maybe he should pass. He'd made two clones, after all. It wasn't his fault they'd... er... died. He was instantly shot down by all the other instructors, as Naruto had known he'd be.

Later, Mizuki cursed softly as the demon-brat was revealed to not be where he was supposed to be. He'd expected him to stick around and angst over all the other children being congradulated by their parents. Why wouldn't he? This was his third time failing the graduation exam. Why, it was almost like... like... like the boy just didn't give a damn about becoming a ninja.

He shook off the odd thought. What kind of little brat didn't want to be a ninja? The idea was ludicrous. Still... he couldn't be found. Well damn. It looked like he would just have to steal that scroll himself, without a convenient scapegoat to take all the blame while he made tracks. Crap.

xxx

Naruto was still surprised that nobody had discovered his more sorcerous abilities yet. I mean, he only teleported daily back to the tower, as he preferred it over the tiny apartment the Hokage had assigned him. Sure he would go back every now and again to dust and move things around in an effort to make it look like someone really lived there, but frankly, the tower was a much nicer place to live. And there were so many wonderful books, mostly on the magical arts, but one would find the occasional tome of philosophy or a goblin cookbook or the diary of an unusually educated barbarian or a scientific study into the mating habits of Naga and Merfolk. Naruto had flushed at that one, but read it out of fascination anyway, hoping that this would alleviate the need to have someone give him 'the TALK'.

Unfortunately, the fact that neither species usually had genitals, as such, meant that it did little more than mar his poor, little, impressionable young mind.

But today, he'd learned a new spell, and he needed to test it out. Hmm... but how? The arrow of flame would be best tested against a living target, but how to choose a target that deserved being punctured with a magical arrow and subsequently charred to a crisp from the inside out?

Hmm... time for some divination. He did truly hate that stupid crystal ball, and yet it was so useful at times... He sighed and removed it from its place in his cloak, glaring at it for a moment before it began to glow with a subtle aura and rise off his palm. Now, he just needed a suitable poem. A couplet would do, really.

"Orb of crystal floating free, show me what I wish to see!"

Simple, yet effective. Just how Naruto preferred things. The ball flashed and revealed a scene. Someone was stealing something... a scroll. They made it out relatively unseen, but an alarm was raised as they tried to walk innocently away. The scroll had been noted to be missing. Cursing, the figure broke into a run for the forest, and was revealed for a moment in the moonlight to be...

"Mizuki-sensei? Well, if he's the best target available..."

He began heading out. It was only an hour or so until sundown, so he had plenty of time to set up an ambush.

xxx

"The scroll is gone!"

"Mizuki has stolen the Forbidden Scroll!"

"Find him, Kill him!"

"Mizuki? Sounds like something the demon-brat would do."

The ninja who'd made that last comment barely dodged the kunai sent his way by Sandaime-sama.

"Find Mizuki and execute him for this tresspass and return the scroll to me. He can't have gone far."

The assembled ninja scattered, and Iruka took a moment to thing about things. If he was Mizuki, he would be... running as fast as he could out of Konoha. The nearest exit was... that way. And the forest beyond.

Iruka started running.

Meanwhile, Mizuki had just hit the edge of the forest and had paused for a breather. Running was one thing. Running with a huge, fragile, fifty pound scroll strapped to his back? Nowhere near so easy.

Which was why he could be excused for not immediately noticing the rustling of the bushes. He did however note the deep growly noise and turned around and-

"OH DEAR LORD, WHAT IS THAT!"

A tendril slammed heavily into the patch of ground he'd just occupied, lifting from the crater it had left and swinging it sideways, crashing into a tree, which splintered from the force.

"A Gazer Beast. Drawn here and bound to my service through a fourth level 'Summon Creature' spell, if you must know."

Gazer Beast... the name was apt. The thing was a floating mass of eyeballs of all sorts set in pulsing pinkish fless, with tendrils of the same flesh extruding from random areas for equally random distances. Then he recognized the voice.

"You... Uzumaki Naruto!"

The cloaked boy stepped out of the shadows, cocked his head and smiled slightly.

"In the flesh."

A hail of metal followed these words, deflecting off of an invisible spherical shield a few feet in front of Naruto. There were brief flashes of light at the point of contact, but nothing else as the kunai and shuriken fell to the ground. Naruto's smile grew the slightest fraction.

"Did you really think I would reveal myself without protection, and risk injury? The Tarn's All-Purpose Shield spell is not the most specialized, and so not the most powerful defensive spell, but it suits the purpose."

"What... what kind of ninjutsu is this?"

"The reality of things would take far too long to explain to one who is about to die. Consider them... a clan based style, if you will. Currently unusable by anyone in Konoha save myself. Now... let's play a game, shall we? I've no doubt you can kill a simple Gazer Beast, even with just your kunai and shuriken. But after that will come another monster, and another, and another, each more powerful than the last, and sooner or later you will fall. The better you fight, the longer you live. It's that simple."

The air around them shimmered, and Mizuki knew that some form of barrier had been set up. Then the Gazer Beast renewed its assault, and he had no more time to think... only to act.

Outside, Iruka had just pulled up to a stop next to the barrier, scratching his head. From this side, it was completely opaque and there was no way to enter... just like there was no way to leave from the inside, although you could see out.

Back inside, Mizuki had completely lost his cool when he noted the one tendril that was... er... phallic in nature. Most experienced warriors could brush such a thing off in favor of killing the monster, but... Apparently he'd at one point come up against a skilled genjutsu user and now his greatest fear was... yeah.

So he'd automatically launched every kunai, shuriken, and other weapon he had against the thing. Unfortunately, in his panic, his aim had slipped. He was lucky if one in five weapons even hit home, and of those only one in three had managed to do any sort of damage, from being imbedded in an eye. Still, the thing had plenty more, and was only scratched otherwise. It approached the panicking and collapsed chunnin... and was dispelled with a wave of the hand from Naruto.

"That was truly dissappointing. It seems I overestimated your abilities severely. No matter... I still get to test my new spell on a live subject."

He extended one finger towards Mizuki before he could rise, chanting a line of Dark Elvish under his breath.

"Fire, source of all heat and light, gather to me and fly straight and true. Pierce my enemies... Arrow of Deadly Flame!"

Mizuki didn't even have time to be surprised at the indecipherable words before the burning dart launched from Naruto's fingertip lodged in his chest. He looked down, staring dumbly as the oxygen in his lungs ignited.

It was not a swift or pleasant death. Naruto arched an eyebrow at the result, a charred corpse with a large cavity in what used to be its chest.

"Well... that was interesting. Still can't compare to a simple fireball, though. Pity. Maybe I'll try that Minute Metor Storm spell next."

Another wave of his hand and the barrier fell, revealing a surprised Iruka on the other side. Naruto was just as surprised, but didn't show it, choosing instead to subvocalize a minor Silvertongue cantrip before speaking.

"Here lies a traitor to Konoha, slain by one of her unfavored sons. If you will excuse me, sensei..."

"Wait... you did this, Naruto? How?"

A quick adaptation of the same lie he'd used on Mizuki was in order...

"Secret techniques. Only I can use them, as far as I know."

"I... see."

Iruka took a moment to kneel next to the corpse and confirm that it had indeed at one time been Mizuki, and that scroll over there was, in fact, the Forbidden Scroll of Seals.

Then he smiled.

"Congradulations, Naruto."

Naruto frowned. This boded ill. He was correct.

"As I am a chunnin instructor, as was Mizuki, and as you've just done a great service to Konoha, and as you should be rewarded, I'd like to say... welcome to the Ninja, Genin Naruto."

Naruto turned away to conceal the writhing turmoil of emotions on his face at the news of his acceptance into a job that he hadn't wanted in the first place. He still couldn't bring himself to hate the man...

But right now he wanted to kill Iruka so much...

"Be sure to report to the classroom the day after tomorrow... your hitai-ate will be delivered to your apartment tomorrow morning."

SO MUCH! And it would be so easy too... just one little fireball, and the problem became, as it were, ash on the wind, and he wouldn't have to deal with it anymore.

Mainly because Iruka wold be reduced to ash floating on the wind.

xxx

Sarutobi grinned as he placed a cloth over his scrying orb. Not his place to watch the joyous gratitude of a student toward his teacher, after all. It was a private thing. Though he did wonder about that odd secret technique he'd used to create that barrier. And what had that monster been? A clan based summon? But he'd been pretty sure that the Yondaime's legacy had been his actual son... still, there hadn't actually been any proof of that. Just the uncanny similarities between the child and the village's protector.

However, he'd never seen anything like this in the Yondaime's family. It seemed like Naruto was from an entirely different lineage altogether then... that could be a problem.

The date of the Kyuubi's attack had been preheralded by a... well, a peaceful meeting of all villages in Konoha territory. It was an experiment that seemed to have worked well, and would promote a more stable peace between the five great nations. For a week or so, the streets had been teeming with shinobi. Sand-nin would drink in a bar next to Mist-nin and Rock-nin, while Konoha-nin would give tours of the country to Grass ninja. At the end of the week, there had been a huge festival just outside Konoha's walls.

Granted, the effect had been spoiled somewhat by the distant appearance of Kyuubi. Most of the ninja at this point had immediately left for home, but a few from each village had decided, for whatever reason, to stay behind and help. Thankfully, most of these were the most dangerous kind who'd wanted their crack at a legendary demon. Many of them had displayed secret techniques and summon creatures every bit as odd as what he'd just seen while tracking Mizuki. It wasn't infeasible that one of them had brought a wife along, who had gone into labor with all the excitement.

In that case, the Yondaime might very well have just snatched the first infant he'd come across. Which, it seemed, might not have been native to Konoha.

Still, the Hokage had to wonder in that case... how had he actually learned the secret techniques? Such were, by their very nature, secret. The Hyuuga guarded their Jyuuken jealously, the Uchiha had been extremely secretive about the Mangekyo, which had lead to disaster, The Inuzuka...

The Sandaime had to pause at that. The Inuzuka learned their secret techniques from both the human elders of the clan, and the canine ones. Furthermore, their canine partner, or partners, chose them shortly after infancy, and created a bond allowing them to understand each others speech and, with effort, speak the language of the other. Even if Kuromaru was, thus far, the only canine elder to expend the effort to do so.

In that case... did he have an animal companion, similar to the Inuzuka? For a second he considered the Gazer Beast and shuddered. No... no that couldn't be it. Or not that one at least. Still... dissappearing for a year, then coming back different. Although he'd never seen an animal with the boy... then again, that could just be a protection mechanism. To his eternal sorrow, the villagers would likely be perfectly willing to kill any animal that the 'Demon Brat' called pet. So it wasn't so unlikely that Naruto might have an animal companion not dissimilar to the Inuzuka, who'd simply decided not to reveal itself publicly.

From that, it wasn't such a far leap to imagine that it might very well be this companion who had taught Naruto secret techniques of whatever clan he actually belonged to. Like pieces of a puzzle, many things suddenly snapped together. It all made sense... he was just happy that Naruto had apparently decided to stay here, rather than leave for his own clan, whoever they were.

Still, there was one piece of the puzzle missing, even as he labled Uzumaki Naruto officially as a Hijutsu user. The animal partner itself. He just couldn't bring himself to consider the possibility that that... thing... was it.

xxx

Elsewhere, Naruto was sulking. Stupid Mizuki. Stupid scroll. Stupid Iruka. Stupid Konoha. Stupid ninjas.

Now he was definitely stuck. In two days, he would be placed on a four man team. Three genin to one instructor jounin. This would definitely pose a problem, as he'd never bothered to recall the names of any of his classmates. Or interact with them in any way. Or acknowledge their existence. It worked for him much better than it did for duckbutt hair in the front, who constantly had girls swarming him.

Sighing, he took a sip from a mana replenishing potion that he had handy. Somehow, he got the feeling that he'd need to brew more of these. Oh well.

He'd been planning on leaving Konoha. Just walking out the gates and wandering the world... he even had a special transportation artifact crafted. Just set it where he stopped, then teleport back to the tower to sleep, and when he woke up he could teleport back to where he'd left the object.

Now, with him being bound to Konoha's service, that left him in something of a bind. Except for certain rare exceptions, shinobi only left Konoha while on missions. That meant he would be spending a good bit of time here. Which sucked. He blinked as something occured to him.

As long as they had the money, anyone could hire a ninja for something. Even other ninja. Many of the jounin found that little trick useful. If they didn't feel like walking all the way to the market to buy their own food, or mowing their own lawn... well, there were always genin to do it. And for a little more money, you could specifically request which ninja you wanted. They could always turn the mission down, but usually wouldn't.

So... what was stopping him from hiring himself for a mission like, say, go explore (insert random ancient ruin here)?

Little did he know that he'd just hit on the secret of how higher level ninja would score paid vacation days. Sure, it would cost them, but they would get plenty of rest and relaxation as they 'guarded' hot springs and festivals.

Still... to do that, he'd need more money than he currently had. Gold was all well and good, but if he put in an 'anonymous' mission request for Uzumaki Naruto, but paid in gold... it would be obvious who'd made the request and it would most likely be denied. This plan required a little more thought be put into things.

He shook his head. If he was going to be a ninja, then he'd end up actively placing himself in dangerous positions. Not good. He'd either need something to boost his own magical power, to ensure that he could keep himself alive and relatively whole... or he would have to trust in his teammates to protect him.

Hnrk... snicker... chuckle... BWAHAHAHAHA!

Oh yeah, that was a good one. 'Trust in his teammates to protect him'... instant classic. He'd have to remember that. So, magical power boost it was... hmm.

Oh of course. A Familiar. Not only would it be able to siphon and draw ambient energies from the surroundings and convert it into mana for his own use, but if he was fortunate enough to attract something like a hellhound or some large animal through the calling, then it could defend him as well. He'd even read something about a sorceror who'd ended up with a baby dragon through the calling.

He'd definitely have to read up on some healing spells. Despite his distaste for unneccessary pain, and the fact that his own speed of healing seemed capable of dealing with just about any wound if left long enough, it really wouldn't do for his familiar to up and die on him.

But for the calling itself, he'd need to collect some things before he went back to the tower. A few cloves of garlic, a handful of rat tails, a bat wing, a leather pouch filled with flakes of rust, at least one gallon of some form of alcohol, a few sprigs of sageweed, and other components. Most of those were stored by the barrelful in the tower, but he'd definitely have to pick up the rust and alcohol, at least, in town. But how to get it? He was, technically, underage.

Hmm... this would be where a few mental compulsions would come in handy. How fortunate that he happened to be carrying a book on them.

xxx

The calling itself was a long complicated matter involving a complicated diagram of green powder, burning most of the components while placing the sake, as it was the most commonly available alcohol, into a small trough and spilling no less than a pint of his own blood into it in order to create a temporary rift through all levels of time and space to summon a being to serve as a familiar.

It was after that happened that things would get tense.

The booze was something like bait. Interestingly enough, almost everything capable of performing as a mage's Familiar had a taste for alcohol, and if drunk, the blood in the bait would act as a magical catalyst to bind the being to the summoner's service for however long he or she should live. For some of these beings, it would extend their natural lifespan significantly. For others, the time spent as such would be as a blink of an eye in the first place, so they didn't really mind.

Of course there were several instances where the possible Familiar, for one reason or another, chose not to go straight for the booze. Typically, in these situations, the being would be quite aggravated at being pulled from wherever it was and whatever it was doing. So there was a chance that, rather than getting a familiar, Naruto would end up fighting for his life. Keeping this in mind, he chugged a mana potion and waited for his wound to heal before activating the final rune.

He held his breath as the pattern on the floor glowed and there was a flash of light, heralding a being crossing through the weave of reality.

xxx

A.N.

Chapter two up. And as for the Dark Knight's question... well he's not technically a Telvanni. He's very like a Telvanni sorceror though, if that helps. And actually, a good part of what I based this on had the corpse in the tower basement be a still living Dark Elf Telvanni Sorceror that would train him. Eventually, I scrapped that bit. Sorry.

And the reason that he's spent so many years without his magic being detected is directly linked to how much like a Telvanni he is. He saw no reason to socialize with the weaklings that, with luck, he'd never see again anyway, and so just came across as a shy kid with no friends. With nobody paying much attention to him, for one reason or another, nobody noticed the quirks in his personality.

So anyway, the Hokage's putting nonexistent pieces together and Naruto'll soon be getting a Familiar that will serve to confuse him even further. What will it be? The Hellhound that he would prefer? Some form of large predator? A minor demon? Some form of celestial entity? A talking animal? Some other sort of magical being? Something else entirely, perhaps? There's just so many options...