I do not own Naruto in any format, this is fan fiction
First I like to thank all the people that posted reviews for this story. I can feel that they were heartfelt and I thank you for your honesty and kindness. I truly believed that this story would be completely lost in the vast ocean that is Naruto fan fiction. To find that people actually reading your story, it would make any writer happy. Again Thank you.
Naruto began his fourth year and he was feeling pretty confident about what his chances were to be the top student again that year. In truth he never depended on then teaching ability of Iruka or Mizuki, he knew that he should try and learn things first on his own, the teachers were simply going to provide a different view point to clarify the class material and maybe answer the odd question. Sasuke had a different reason for trying not to depend on his teachers, they gave Naruto top grades for a few years already, it was clear to him that the teachers wanted to stay in the good graces of their Hokage.
Naruto often went through school running and jumping on the rooftops of the buildings in between his home and the academy. It surprised a few ANBU when he first started doing that. Now they saw it as quite normal, some even greeted him as he passed by, wishing him to have a pleasant morning. Itachi could not help but to laugh as he realized the reason he actually was doing that, somehow Naruto had found out how to use chakra to walk on walls and was doing it as a chakra control exercise. The fact he did it every morning, was another reason he was such a good student.
Naruto arrived to the academy to be greeted by the same person as always. "Sasuke, would it kill you to smile?" Sasuke flat out told him he had no reason to smile, thanks to him his father spent most of the summer break, screaming at him for shaming his clan for getting lower grades than a person who was not even an Uchiha. "But Sasuke, that makes it sound like it was my fault you did not enjoy your summer break." Sasuke did not even bother in giving a reply, why answer something that he considered obvious.
Now what Sasuke did not realize was that one of the teachers in their class, actually hated Naruto. Mizuki hated him since he first looked at his ears. Most of the village hated the nine tails fox, most because having the thing in the village caused so many problems, from other villages trying to steal the thing, or someone blamed it for a failed harvest, a child dying during childbirth, or milk going sour. All these things and more were blamed on the biju, if Kushina was not the wife of the Hokage, and an accomplished former ANBU Captain, the villagers would have tried to kill her a few thousand times.
Mizuki did everything he could to make the the freak with the fox ears fail, he switched his tests with questions that should be impossible for Naruto to answer correctly, the weapons training, most had to only hit their targets, Mizuki demanded Naruto to hit vital points, that he had not even been taught their location. In taijutsu he demanded that Naruto wear very heavy weighted practice vest and guards.. Even with all this Naruto would always pull through and get high grades.
During his fifth year Naruto decided to visit Mikoto, he had a feeling something was extremely wrong. As fate would have it he was right. For this was the night of what later be called the Uchiha Massacre. Itachi hated the idea of killing his own clan, but he found proof that many of the key members of the clan were planing to overthrow the current Hokage, and replace him with Fugaku. Itachi did what he felt was needed, he killed the people he considered traitors to the village.
He simply left his family to be the last to suffer their punishment. Itachi walked over to his father and asked him, why would he betray the village? Fugaku made no attempt to make an excuse, he told his son that he should have been Hokage, and not Minato Namikaze. Itachi killed him as his mother and brother both came into the room.
Naruto heard most of the argument from the nearby window, he jumped through when Itachi was about to strike Mikoto. He blocked Itachi's sword with a single kunai. "Itachi, why are you doing this? Why kill so many people? I saw the corpses on the way here." Itachi was surprised to see two tomoe in each of his eyes, angrily spinning. "Naruto, I know you heard him declare his reason for betraying the village, that is why you did not stop me before, when I killed father."
"That may be a reason Itachi, but why kill your own mother, she is innocent!?" Itachi told him she never reported the secret meeting her husband was having in his own home. Naruto took out a second kunai and glared at him. "I will not let you kill Mikoto or my best friend." Itachi began to see how his feeling made his eyes go to the final three tomoe stage. Itachi was smiling when he saw that, he placed him in a genjutsu, paralyzing him and knocked him out. He defended both his mother and the boy that consider him his rival, to the point that he would risk his life.
Itachi was very proud of knowing Naruto, to protect the people he loved he risked his own life. He protected the woman he had a crush on, and they boy he considered his best friend. He walked over to Mikoto who had fainted at the idea of Naruto dying,maybe he was not the only one that had feeling for her, maybe his own mother had a crush on him too. Sasuke tried to defend his mother with his arms.
Itachi looks at him, his eyes showing his magenkyou sharingan staring at him. "Foolish little brother, you would waste the efforts of your savior by throwing your life away, you really are such an example of why our clan is always so weak. I will let you live, because you are not even worth the effort it would take for me to kill a pathetic wretch like you."
Mikoto woke up to find Sasuke trying to get Naruto to wake up. She moved to his side and pulled him close, till his head was resting against her chest. Sasuke did not expect what happened next, she began to cry thinking that he was dead. When she could not take the idea anymore, she touched his face and kissed his lips. That is when Naruto woke up and not knowing what happened opened his eyes, to see Mikoto kissing him, a kiss he was very glad to reciprocate.
Well Sasuke had no idea what was happening, one minute his mother held Naruto crying, the next they were kissing like a couple who had been dating for years. He had to put a stop to it, or the way things were going the ANBU who would clearly come during their patrol would find them either kissing or doing something he rather not see.
"Mom, I think it's pretty safe to say he is alive, so would you kindly tell him to stop kissing you like that? Or we are going to have to explain that to the ANBU once they show up." A purple haired cat masked ANBU decided to make her presence know. "No need to wait, I was here by the time they started their little kissing session. I have to say, I had no idea Mikoto Uchiha liked younger guys."
Yugao decided to take the small group to meet with the Hokage, and sent for the doctor to conduct the appropriate autopsy and storage of Fugaku's eyes as it was mentioned in their clan laws and practices. Minato wondered why his son was visiting him at his office, he was not complaining, he liked the idea of his son being more interested in what his father did. But the thing that did not make sense why was his wife's best friend and her child with him, and Cat looked like she had some bad news.
That is when Yugao informed him that Itachi had pretty much slaughtered Fugaku, and all his known allies. Which pretty much meant that the population of the clan was down by one third of the registered members. Their were some who were refused the right to register, just because Fugaku did not consider them actual Uchuha, in reality it was because they refused to blindly obey his orders. Fugaku was treated as clan head, the truth was that in reality the clan head was Mikoto, because her father had set it to be that way in his will.
"Sorry to hear a about your loss, Mikoto. But when is anyone going to tell me what does my son have to do with this?" Minato was first surprised to hear that Mikoto actually was not that sad about her husbands death, if anything she was disappointed that Fugaku died so without feeling much pain, since he died quickly. She also told him that he stopped Itachi from killing her and Sasuke. Minato was shocked to hear his son managed to stop an attack from someone like Itachi, the guy was considered to be an elite, even among his unit in ANBU.
"Other than that, and the fact your son has a fully matured sharingan I would not consider it that strange. Itachi almost placed him in a coma, thanks to the genjutsu he put him in. But I was able to bring him out of it, with a little support, and some mouth to mouth resuscitation." Yugao could have sworn Sasuke whispering something along the lines of 'Bullshit, that was a French kiss.' For some odd reason Sasuke was not that happy about how his own mother had kissed his classmate, she just became a widow, and she was already kissing someone else as if he was her lover, of course he was upset.
Minato had no idea what to say, as far as he could remember no one in his family was ever married to an Uchiha. Well that was not technically true, there was that incident between Madara and Mito Uzumaki, but that happened ages ago. You would think that someone would record a child being conceived due to what happened. The first hokage was actually quite tight lipped about it now that he remembered. Maybe he should ask Kushina about it during dinner. He told Mikoto that his eyes would be ready to be picked up by her, after the autopsy was finished. But considering how he died it would not take more than a few minutes.
Mikoto thanked him for his consideration,and she left with her son to wait for the autopsy to be finished. Minato thanked Cat for bringing them to him so quickly, she simply said that is was her duty. Minato looked at his son for a few minutes before he decided to leave the office early,and asked Kushina if she had any Uchiha relatives. He expected to be told that she did not.. He really should have known better.
"Oh, sure I had a relative who was an Uchiha, I am sure I told you about my grandfather Madara, I really don't think I forgot to tell you,way back when we were dating." Minato's head hit the top of the kitchen table as soon as he finished hearing that. "Well it seems our boy has a fully mature sharingan, which of course it also means our son will eventually become blind.." Kushina told him he had nothing to worry about, as long as he did not abuse his yes or killed his most precious person he was in no danger of going blind." Mikoto had told her the dangers of using the Uchiha bloodline along time ago.
The final year finally came and Iruka was told that for some strange reason Naruto could not used the normal clone jitsu, he had to used a higher form of it called the shadow clone jitsu. Sasuke was actually told by his mother that he should keep an eye on Naruto, he would not have the benefit of having someone with their bloodline to teach him the necessary control exercises, so he could unintentionally activate his eyes, and do something that he would later regret to a fellow classmate. Sasuke stopped arguing with him, and instead followed his training like he was Naruto's shadow.
Itachi made him feel that if he ever was going to be considered an Uchiha by Itachi, he was going to first match and be better than Naruto. Naruto trained every day, and. In secret he went off to hunt bandits at night. He left a shadow clone to make it look like he was asleep in his bed. For some strange reason killing a group of dumb bandits relaxed him.
Yugao knew better since every once in a while their was a package left at their headquarters entrance. The severed heads of at least five rogue ninja, and no indication who killed them, only he did it in a vicious way, by the look in the faces. They looked like they had been scared witless by the person who had killed them.
The final exam came and Mizuki was running out of time, he promised his master that he would get him the forbidden scroll, and he planned to use the Hokage's own son to get the scroll and cause him to be depressed enough that he might be easier for his master to kill. He changed the exam so that everyone had to used the regular clone jitsu. This would make failing Naruto that much easier, sure the Hokage told them he could not use it, but as a good teacher he could not give preferential treatment to a student, now could he?
Naruto got up bright and early, got dressed in his best clothes, black and dark blue gear, had the clan symbol on right above his right shoulder. Kushina wished him good luck, but asked not to hurt his fellow classmates too much. He went like always to school only to find Sasuke waiting for him. "Well, the final test, I guess after this we get placed into a team." Sasuke decided to punch a whole in that dream by saying if they graduate.