Chapter Two: The Secret Revealed

I met Auron when I was seven, five years ago. Then, I lost him. I was nine then, and I'm twelve now, so it's been three years since that day.

Feels longer.

I've tried so hard to let it go, to move on, but I can't.

No matter what I'm doing: walking down the street, taking tests, training... I always get distracted by one memory or another. The only time I can keep him out of my head is when I'm pulling pranks; when I've got a purpose and a plan and some idea of what to do next. So yeah, I stuck with it.

Which I guess brings me to Umino Iruka.

When I first entered the academy(I was seven), Iruka was just like all the other teachers, just as hateful, just as spiteful, maybe even worse. But somewhere along the way, between yelling at me for stuff I couldn't control and punishing me for stuff that I could've but chose not to, he saw something in me worth seeing. Maybe it was pain, maybe it was loneliness- hell, maybe it was just comedic talent. All I know is, one day the scarred chuunin stopped me after class and took me out for dinner, and that was that.

Which I know brings me to my progress in the whole "greatest ninja to ever live" thing.

It's not working out so well.

I tried, I really tried, for Iruka, for the Hokage, for Auron. I tried to be strong, to be a true ninja. I even took the Genin Exams early, twice. But no matter how much I try, no matter how much I train, I just can't do it, I come across as the idiot, the prankster, the guy who'll never become a good ninja, let alone a great one.

But this time is different. The Genin Exams are rolling around again, and this is my last chance, my last chance to pass. There is no fourth chance in the world of shinobi, there wasn't even supposed to be a second, or a third, but like I've said before, I've got friends in high places. This. Is. It. I will- No, I have to pass.

Tomorrow, I become a full-fledged ninja, no ifs, ands, or buts.

And I suppose that that brings me full circle to the here and now.

I won't have time for pranks after the Exams, as I'll be busy with ninja stuff, so today I going to create my masterpiece. Just because I'm forced to pull pranks by reasons outside my control, it doesn't mean that I don't enjoy it. On the contrary, I think they help me forget because I enjoy it. So tomorrow, I'll do what no one else has the guts to do, and the streets... the streets will be crowded with people chanting my name:

Na-Ru-To! Na-Ru-To! Na-Ru-To!

"NARUTO! GET BACK HERE!"

It was a day like any other in the Village Hidden in the Leaves, except it wasn't. The Hokage Monument, had been desecrated. The culprit, Uzumaki Naruto. Which is why at this moment, Naruto found himself in a village-wide chase, across the rooftops and down in the streets. This chase had been going for a while now. Naruto's pursuers had tired long ago, while Naruto was still looking fresh.

Over a building, across the street, Naruto ran straight towards a cart selling jewelry and other such trinkets. The chuunin were expecting him to just up and jump over it. What they were not expecting was for him to jump towards the cart, transform into a small ball, slide through a gap in the cart and reappear as Naruto on the other side. This stunned them so much that their bodies, moving on auto-pilot, crashed into said cart and left them, for lack of a better term, incapacitated.

But Naruto didn't dawdle long, he knew that there were still other predators out there. They would regroup and when they did, it would be trouble. But as he turned around to continue his evasion of his pursuers, he caught sight of a green vest.

Green vest? Wait a minute. Brown hair, um... Ponytail, oh no... Scar across the nose. Damn.

"WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?"

Today's the big day, the Genin Exams. And Naruto was worried. Yesterday he had been confident and sure of himself, but today, the truth had smacked him in the face.

He was screwed.

He was a master of the transformation, and fairly decent with the Kawarimi no Jutsu, but he couldn't pull off a clone to save his life. And lo and behold, the test for his advancement to genin, was the Bunshin no Jutsu.

But Naruto, no matter what happened, was still Naruto. He would not back down, not now, not ever. So, when they called his name to step into the examination room, he took a deep breath, reached into his enormous well of chakra and screamed "BUNSHIN NO JUTSU!" at the top of his lungs. Naruto didn't know what he was expecting. Luck, divine blessings, a previously untapped source of skill and power to emerge from the depths of his soul. Anything, but that sickly, disgusting clone that looked like it had just been raped by a 50-foot tall amazonian woman.

"Naruto," Iruka said sadly. "You fail."

Naruto felt crushed, all his hard work, all his training, all his struggling, was for nothing. It was over, it was all over. Everything, his goal, his future, his dream, gone. Taken away from him by the two words he hated above all else. 'You fail.' But then a beacon of hope came in the form a sinister-eyed, silver-haired chunin.

"You know Iruka," Mizuki said, one eye on Naruto, "we could give him another shot."

"No, Mizuki, all the other students created three clones. Naruto only created one, and look at it, it's pathetic. Fail."

I find myself here, in a forest. A scroll strapped onto my back, and my body littered with scratches and bruises. I did it, I mastered the Kage Bunshin no Jutsu. It was easy to make two clones on my first try. It was exactly the same as making a regular clone. But where before I had to use my chakra to shape light, I just had to use my chakra like glue, to stick together dust and other matter in the air to create a solid form. Molding dust is a lot easier than molding light. But that part in the instructions about imprinting a piece of your consciousness, what was that all about? And- Is that Iruka?

Of all the things Iruka was expecting Naruto to do, asking if he had passed was not one of them. Of all the things he was expecting to happen afterward, Mizuki turning traitor, was completely unexpected. So with kunai and a huge shuriken lodged within him, and him still trying to recover from the shock, he could do nothing but yell as Mizuki revealed the truth to Naruto.

You are the Kyuubi! You are the Nine-Tailed Fox!

But it still hurt.

It hurt when he got a giant shuriken in the back, it hurt when he realized that he had grown soft, it hurt when he saw the pain in Naruto's eyes. But most of all it hurt to watch Naruto run away, to watch the one he'd come to regard as his little brother, run away like he, Iruka, was some abomination. It hurt to see Naruto run away like a frightened child, because it drove home the fact that he was a child and that it had taken Iruka years to realize it.

Naruto... I'm sorry.

I sat there hiding behind a tree, as I listened to Iruka declare that he believed in me, that despite my situation he still considered me Uzumaki Naruto, and it was there, behind that tree, that I had an epiphany. Iruka was protecting me, not because he was the closest thing I had to a family, not because he was my friend, but because I was the closest thing he had to a family, because I was his friend. And Mizuki dared to jeopardize that.

You are the Kyuubi! You are the Nine-Tailed Fox!

So when that bastard made a move towards Iruka, I came out of hiding and attacked him, because that's what friends do.

I jumped and threw a right punch, the hardest I'd ever consciously thrown. More focused than ever, it was the strongest and only fully mastered Armor Break strike I had used to date. And then-See I knew this would happen, this always happens, whenever I try to be serious. Memories pop back up, this one was of my eighth birthday.

--Flashback--

I had walked into the kitchen to see the Hokage and Auron waiting for me. I asked the old man,"What are you doing here?"

He smiled at me and said,"You turn eight today, Naruto-kun, and it's about time you had a real birthday. We're taking you out of the village." I felt like crying then. I remember tears beginning to sting my eyes.

I unsuccessfully tried to blink them away, "Really, old man?" He nodded. I jumped onto the table, one hand on my hip and the other pointing at nothing in particular and pronounced to the world, "HELL YEAH! LET'S GO!"

Auron smirked at me."Fine, we leave as soon as Naruto puts on some clothes." I was confused by that, until I looked down. I was wearing nothing but boxers. I sweatdropped and grinned. The other two laughed.

That day we went to a neighboring town. There was a festival going on, to commemorate the Kyuubi's defeat. We spent the whole day with me and the Sandaime(not wearing his robes by the way)playing games, while Auron just stood back, watched us and laughed. It was and still is to this day, one of the happiest times of my life.

That night we returned to the village and went to the Ichiraku ramen stand. It was great, I remember that the ramen man's daughter made me a cake. They sang "Happy Birthday," and then gave me presents. The people at the stand gave me free ramen coupons, I still have some of them today. Both the Hokage and Auron gave me scrolls.

The Third gave me an D-Rank jutsu called Focus. After gathering chakra for a jutsu, it allowed you to give up a fraction of the chakra you were using. This increased the potency of the chakra that remained, allowing you to get a better effect, than had you simply gone on with the jutsu. While useful, this technique was difficult to pull off in actual combat. Needless to say, no matter the fact that the Hokage said it would come in handy for me, I didn't even touch this one until much later on.

But Auron's was different. It was useful, it was physical and it was one of his trademarks. Using the shinobi's ranking system, I imagine it would have been a C-Rank. The Armor Break. By charging a strike with chakra, be it hand-to-hand or a using a weapon, you can lower a person's pain tolerance. The attack increased the sensitivity of a person's nerves in proportion to the amount of chakra used. At first, I didn't really care for the technique. But that changed later on in the night.

A drunken villager, who was dumb enough to approach me while in the presence of both the Hokage and Auron, came up to the ramen stand. Apparently, he was trying to urinate on me in the middle of our conversation on the Armor Break. I remember Auron's exact words,"Allow me to demonstrate."

Seeing the villager writhing in total agony from a back-handed slap sealed the deal for me. For a while, I spent all of my free time trying to perfect the Armor Break.

--Flashback End--

Damn it, I hate it when that happens. Where was I? Oh yeah, I had just delivered a killer Armor Break to that traitor Mizuki. I know he noticed his extra sensitivity when a breeze blew past us. I saw the confused look on his face. "If you ever lay a hand on Iruka... I'LL KILL YOU!" I declared. I was dead serious.

"Please, you couldn't even touch me, demon," Mizuki spat. Well he was in for a surprise.

I put my fingers in a cross shape and yelled- no, screamed, "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" Suddenly the clearing was filled, covered really, with clones, my clones, my solid clones.

I remembered Mizuki's harsh words, You are the Kyuubi! You are the Nine-Tailed Fox!

We charged.

Focus-Final Fantasy X It made the magic stat stronger, so you can kind of guess how it's going to work in the Narutoverse