Hi, this is chapter two.

Thanks to those that left reviews last time. I hope you like the new chapter as well, because now things really start.

Happy reading.

Witnessing murder

Naruto walked home from the academy. It hadn't been a good day, but then, when did he have a good day there? Well, he had to admit, it had got better. Iruka sensei had started treating him like all the others about a half year from when he started teaching him. Naruto could live with that. But all the other teachers, especially Mizuki were downright nasty. None of them treated him fairly and they tried to sabotage him, wherever they thought they could get away with it. And they thought he didn't notice.

Nearly all of the parents had forbidden their children to even talk with him. The exceptions were some of the ninja clan raised children. Shikamaru, Choji and Kiba seemingly didn't have such problems with him. But he only had a loose friendship with them. He could spend some time with them at the academy, but outside it was lonely. The parents were so stupid in his opinion. Especially those, who were just civilians. He sighed. If they only knew.

He had built a reputation of being a talentless fool who liked to prank the whole village. But he could hardly show his true abilities. If the villagers thought he was strong and talented they would go haywire. Stupid, prejudiced fools. It had been really hard when he was younger, but now he was able to avoid nearly all negative contact with them. He was kind of proud of his ability to deceive the whole village.

He wasn't the stupid looser, everybody thought he was, quite the opposite. But if he ever showed his abilities while he was still at the academy, everybody would think the Kyubi had taken him over or, the favorite belief of most of those with no common sense, that he was the Kyubi. As if the fox would have taken all that horrible treatment by the villagers for twelve years without retaliation.

Oh yes, he knew about the fox. Naruto was highly intelligent. And even if he had been just of average intelligence, it was kind of obvious if somebody put the clues together. Being called 'demon, monster and beast' and being told 'to die for his crimes' since he could walk and talk, makes you suspicious that more is going on. If you add your birthday, October 10th, the fact that bijus could only be sealed but not killed and a big seal appearing on your stomach, whenever you mold chakra and you can figure it out.

He hadn't told the Hokage, that he knew. It was better not to worry the old man. He was after all one of those who were really kind to him. Naruto knew that the Sandaime Hokage wanted to do more for him, but couldn't due to his many duties. And to be honest, the Hokage was old and should have retired some time ago, but somehow fate had a strange sense of humor to rob him of all possible successors. First when he had retired and Minato Namikaze had become the Yondaime, this had only been for a little more than a year before the Yondaime had sacrificed his life to rescue Konoha from the Kyubi.

Then some years after Sarutobi had been Hokage again, the most promising candidate to take over in a few years, when he had got more experience, Itachi Uchiha had killed his whole clan in a seemingly spurt of insanity. If only Konoha knew that they had just escaped a coup. Not even Sarutobi knew this, but Naruto knew that the Uchiha massacre had been an order given to Itachi. How he knew that? Well, having a godfather, who had said Uchiha as a main part of his spy network, did give you an advantage in knowledge. Of course only a select few knew that Naruto had contact with Jiraiya and was taught the working procedures of this network to continue when Jiraiya retired.

Naruto looked around. Many looked at him with hatred in their eyes.

'Stupid idiots, if I was the Kyubi, I would have destroyed Konoha many times by now. Do they really think a demon would be patient for twelve years while being treated like I am?' He thought irritated.

He crossed a jonin with dark green hair who wrote something in a notebook.

'Must be collecting information for an ongoing investigation. But why does he do this in the open? Perhaps nothing of high rank. Since the Uchiha massacre, Konoha doesn't have a police force anymore. Could be a reason.' Naruto pondered.

Naruto liked some of the higher ranking ninjas in the village. They were normally not as stupid as some lower ranks and understood the concept of sealing. The difference between him and the fox. Some were distant but didn't openly glare at him. He knew that most of his earlier ANBU guards when he had been younger had stopped seeing him as a danger, when they had observed him for some time. He could accept that. Jinchuriki like him could sometimes be dangerous if their seals were too weak or they were mentally unstable.

When they saw, that neither was true with Naruto, they had taken to treat him like any other child in the village. Not that ANBU had a lot of contact with the children of the village anyway. But it was nice to know he wasn't hated by them. One had even helped him getting started with his training in taijutsu after he had seen how the teachers at the academy taught him wrong movements in his first lesson. One with a weasel mask. Sadly he must have been killed on a mission, because he had disappeared when Naruto was seven.

He looked at his watch.

'I better hurry if I want to be on time for training.' He thought.

On his way home he saw Kiba with his dog Akamaru on his head and Choji next to a food parlor. Naruto shortly greeted them by raising his hand and they nodded in response.

'Fits for Choji to stop here. From what he told me in class, he really likes their takeout. I should come here sometime to try it under a transformation.' He pondered.

A cloaked figure appeared next to the jonin. That was not that unusual. It happened that ANBU called other ninjas for the Hokage. The jonin looked up from his notebook and seemed to relax, seemingly recognizing the newcomer, which strengthened the thought of him being an ANBU. Then suddenly the cloaked figure thrust a kunai into the jonin's chest and disappeared. Naruto who saw this ran to the jonin to help, but he just grabbed his chest over the heart, seemingly to grab the kunai, looked into Naruto's eyes trying to say something, but couldn't and died. The attacker had hit a vital point.

A bit later three ANBU landed next to the victim. They wore grey cloaks and white animal masks. They checked the jonin for any signs of life, but couldn't find a pulse.

"No chance. He is already dead. The attacker knew what he did." The leader with a bird mask said.

"Orders, captain?" The ANBU with the ox mask asked.

"Question everybody who was around here. As we have lunch break, most villagers are at home, so we only have a few witnesses. I will take the three children that were nearby with me to Hokage Sama. You question the shop owners around and the ones who stood around. I don't know what information the civilians can give. Our best chance are the academy students. They should be trained to spot more details."

"Understood, captain." The ANBU said and began with his task.

Naruto was shaking madly. The ANBU thought because he had just seen somebody being murdered in front of his eyes. After all, no academy student would have been confronted with death. But actually Naruto was furious he couldn't stop the attack. Of course all signs had been that this was just a normal occurrence of an ANBU contacting a jonin, especially after the jonin dropped his guard and relaxed, but he had been next to them, just three meters away or so. And he had been useless. He had to train more in detection of intent of strangers. But perhaps it was because he himself hadn't been threatened. He had a good sense of danger normally. He would have to ask Jiraiya.

"Naruto Uzumaki, you have to accompany us to the Hokage to tell him what has happened here. As you were next to the victim when it happened you are one of our best chances to get hints of the culprit." Bird explained. Naruto nodded, having expected this.

"Kiba Inuzuka, Choji Akimichi, the same goes for you."

The ANBU with the frog mask disappeared with the corpse while the captain gathered the three boys near him.

"Take hold of my arm, I'm going to use body flicker to get to the tower." the ANBU captain said, the boys obeyed and they all disappeared in a cloud of smoke.

When they reappeared in the Hokage's office, the Sandaime looked surprised at the group.

"What happened?" He asked, thinking that Naruto had pulled a rather heavy prank to require his ANBU to escort him here.

"My team and I were on patrol in the village when we crossed the location of the murder of jonin Isamu Nakasawa. We were too late to follow the murderer or to do anything for Isamu. As it was lunch break not a lot of people were around. Most of the usual customers of the food stalls had already been gone when it happened. These three academy students were around and I thought they might be our best source of information. Ox is questioning the shop owners and Frog has taken Isamu to the morgue." Bird reported to the suddenly serious Hokage.

"I see, good reasoning, Bird. Naruto, Kiba, Choji, I need as many details as you can remember. This is vital to find the culprit. This could be a very serious threat to the village." He told them.

Kiba began: "I think it was a beautiful woman in a blue cloak."

"No, it was a middle aged man with a black cloak." Choji said.

Akamaru barked. "Ah, Akamaru said that it was a white cloak." Kiba translated.

"Did you really see the culprit?" Bird asked.

"Naruto, what did you see?" The Hokage asked.

Naruto had his eyes closed and used a technique Jiraiya had taught him to replay the scene again. Now was not the time to pretend to be an idiot. This was a matter of the safety of the village. And the Hokage would be able to keep it quiet until he graduated in two weeks.

"It was impossible to see if it was a man or a woman. The height was about 1.70 meters, possible difference 3 centimeters more or less. Normal stature. The culprit was completely hidden by the cloak so no identifying features were seen. The cloak was dark grey like normal ANBU cloaks. Isamu Nakasawa was writing down some things in his notebook when he was approached by the culprit. He looked up and seemed to recognize the person, as his body slightly relaxed after seeing the face of the attacker.

"Then suddenly the cloaked person thrusted a kunai into Isamu's chest and disappeared with a body flicker. I ran to the victim, he held his hand over his heart, I think to grab the kunai, tried to tell me something, but he couldn't speak, then he died. All in all it was over in perhaps fifteen seconds."

Naruto opened his eyes again only to see the Hokage being impressed and Kiba scowling.

"What would an idiot and loser like you know, Naruto?" Kiba shouted, only to be interrupted by Bird, who was really impressed with this boy.

"Memory retention technique?" He asked Naruto.

Naruto nodded to the surprise of the Hokage.

"I think we can let Kiba Inuzuka and Choji Akimichi go. Naruto Uzumaki was the closest to the incident and with him being able to use this technique he can tell us all we need to know." Bird said.

"You are right, Bird;. Kiba, Choji, thank you for your help and cooperation. We will take this from here on. Naruto, please stay."

The two boys and one dog left the room after bowing to the Hokage and closed the door.

"Get Ibiki here." The Hokage told Bird, who nodded and vanished.

"You are really surprising me, Naruto. Where did you learn that technique? I know it was taken out of the academy lessons after the war." The Hokage asked.

"Stupid decision if you ask me, old man. This technique is really useful, especially in the field. Sometimes you need to recall the way a fight went to gain more information on your enemy if he got away. It helps you the next time around."

"I agree, but this didn't answer my question."

"You do know that there is a certain pervert working for this village who is a spymaster? When I met him a few years ago, he introduced himself to me as a super pervert by the way; he took interest in training me somewhat when he was around. This is one of the techniques he taught me."

"You have met Jiraiya?" The Hokage asked surprised.

"Yes, stumbled over him, when I walked by the hot springs one day and caught him spying at the women's bath. I blackmailed him into training me. He first didn't want to, but when I said, I would rat him out to the women, he agreed. "

"That sounds like him. What else did he tell you?" The Hokage feared, that Jiraiya might have told Naruto who his parents were.

"Nothing really important, but it was nice to have somebody to help me train for a change. The senseis at the academy don't like me and often ignore me or tell me wrong things. I don't know why, old man; I didn't do anything to make them hate me. It was so from the beginning, though it got better with Iruka sensei after half a year, but the others didn't change."

The Hokage was saddened but also relieved. The boy didn't know about his parents but it was so wrong that he had to suffer for the burden he carried. If only the people would look at him as a boy and not the fox.

Naruto mentally congratulated himself. This way the Hokage wouldn't find out that he already knew who his parents were. Well, Jiraiya hadn't told him; he had found out by himself. But he didn't need to know this yet. The face of the Hokage showed that he was really sorry how the villagers treated Naruto. But as long as he hadn't graduated, he couldn't really do much about his situation. Then a cloud of smoke appeared in the office and the head of Konoha's T & I department Ibiki Morino appeared.

"You called for me, Hokage Sama?" He asked.

Naruto knew about this man, even if he hadn't met him before. No shinobi in the village didn't know about the so called sadist in interrogation. This man was able to screw around with the minds of his victims until they slipped up and he could get the needed information from them. If that didn't work, well he could resort to physical torture. This man was feared in the elemental countries.

"Yes, Ibiki. Naruto here was witness to the murder of Isamu Nakasawa and has already told me and Bird the things he knows using the memory retention technique. Before you ask, he met Jiraiya and blackmailed him into training him and this is one thing he learned from him." The Hokage explained.

"Was Jiraiya Sama peeping again?" Ibiki asked, masking his being impressed with a boy so young knowing this technique.

"He really is a pervert." Naruto said indignantly. "Yes, he was. I threatened him to rat him out to the women in the hot springs and he reluctantly agreed to help me."

"What else did he teach you?" Ibiki asked interested.

Contrary to most of the villagers he could see potential in this boy. A boy who was able to sneak into the Inuzuka compound undetected to spike the dog food with energy powder, which led to the dogs running wild for two days, had to have some abilities. And at that time Naruto had been eight. They had assembled nearly all chunin in the village that were free at the time and they only got him after chasing him around for three hours. Additionally his chasers had been totally humiliated to not catch him before. They had been caught in different prank traps and only the coincidental appearance of Kakashi Hatake had enabled them to get the boy.

When Naruto was nine, they had needed jonin to hunt him down, the chunin were too slow for him. He had managed to tar and feather the merchant guild's leaders, probably they had massively overcharged or denied him service again. Ibiki knew that the most elaborate pranks Naruto did were retaliation for unfair treatment towards him. Now they needed ANBU to catch him, if they could even prove that it had been him. Mostly they only could say who else would dare to do the things that happened. And the only two people who regularly could catch Naruto were Kakashi, who mostly wasn't willing to do so or three hours too late and Iruka for some strange reason.

No, this was not a boy who didn't have potential.

"Tree walking, water walking, leaf balancing, kunai throwing." Naruto counted on his fingers.

"Tree walking and water walking are exercises that genin normally learn, Naruto." The Hokage interrupted.

"And? The children of the clans are taught them before that point in time, so why shouldn't I learn it? I had problems learning the academy techniques and the pervert said I needed better chakra control. When I asked him how the hell I should do that, he showed me these exercises. It helped, but I still have problems because I somehow have a giant amount of chakra. Way more than the others in my class." He told them.

Both adults knew the reason for this, the Hokage better than Ibiki. Even alone, Kushina and Minato had enormous amounts of chakra and if you added the Kyubi their son had so much chakra, that it was logical that he needed higher level control exercises.

"Well, I would be glad to hear your report, Uzumaki." Ibiki said.

Naruto again retold the incident. Ibiki was impressed with the details the boy gave on the culprit and the behavior of the victim before the attack. He added additional questions, every little details could lead to finding the murderer. And an open attack inside the village was disturbing.

"Did you observe anything else on your way, something that was out of place or somebody who acted suspicious?" Ibiki asked.

Naruto again closed his eyes and went over the whole way from the academy to the crime site.

"No, nothing out of the ordinary. That is troubling. It could mean that we have a mole in Konoha." He said.

'I will have to observe this boy's development after the graduation exams. Perhaps I should be present then to have a firsthand point of view. This boy could be the necessary fresh blood we need in the ANBU. He could make a fantastic infiltration and information gathering specialist.' Ibiki thought.

"Thank you for your information, Naruto. Is there anything I can do for you? I mean I know seeing somebody die for the first time is hard." The Hokage said.

"Don't worry, I'm fine. I have seen worse things than a clean murder."

The Hokage sighed. This child had suffered too much for his young age. Only during wartimes children like Naruto should be forced to experience such a hard life. And he had experienced it because the village consisted of idiots who could not see that this boy protected them all by his sacrifice. It just wasn't right

"Is it alright if I leave now? I have to train to get stronger if I want to get that hat of yours." He said grinning.

'A mask!' Ibiki realized. 'He is using a mask to prevent others from finding out his true abilities. This smile just now was completely fake. It normally takes a trained shinobi to pull such a perfect act off. How much do you hide from everybody, Naruto Uzumaki?'

"Yes, go ahead, Naruto." The Hokage said, dismissing the boy.

Naruto left the office. Ibiki looked at the Hokage.

"I want to be proctor for the academy graduation exam." He said bluntly.

"That is surprising, Ibiki. Would you tell me the reason? I admit Naruto has surprised me with his abilities, but I didn't think this show would warrant your interest."

"He is hiding more than it seems. His whole happy go lucky persona, which he shows to the village and the near failure results at the academy I have heard of, are a trick. A boy of twelve, who can lead jonin and ANBU on a three hour chase around the village, just using prank traps, only being caught by Kakashi, acknowledged as one of our best ninja, or Iruka, who I think is a sensor, who is able to get a sannin to train him more than once and able to stay calm after witnessing a murder is more than interesting for me. If I had to guess, I would say he plans on revealing everything during his exam.

"That is what I would do. Nobody can sabotage him after that. It would be too late as all ninjas are under the control of the Hokage, and you are one of the few persons to not try to screw him over. I have heard of the early attempts to hamper him by academy teachers. They have seemingly stopped, but I would guess they are just cleverer than before. If he had learned the things he needs on his own, or with a little help of Jiraiya Sama, he could stay at the bottom of his class until it really counts."

"Do you really think he would be that sly? It doesn't seem to fit his personality. I mean I see him fairly often and he never let anything slip in this direction. But perhaps somebody helped him to hide the signs that I would be able to spot. But it would have to be somebody who had more time for Naruto than Jiraiya. He just isn't in the village often enough."

"Well, I would like to prove my theory."

"Alright, you will be sitting in the exams as an observer. That will also allow me to ensure nobody tries to make it harder for Naruto if your suspicion is true."

That's it for now. Please tell me what you think.