Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to the last man standing. Let the battle begin.
And then suddenly, Ninjas!
The Completely Underwhelming Naruto Uzumaki
What, do you expect him to be awesome? Silly reader…
[1.]
Some people are born winners–everyone else has to work for it. That is the distinction between a genius, and everyone else. Itachi Uchiha was a genius, graduating from the Ninja Academy before most kids were done with the bed-wetting thing (Itachi himself didn't stop until after he learned the Sharingan). He became a Chunin at age ten and at thirteen joined the ANBU cannon fodder squad, serving with distinction as one who managed to not die when the situation called for an idiotic death.
Then there was his brother, Sasuke Uchiha, kind of a late bloomer by Uchiha standards, nevertheless he mastered the Great Fireball Jutsu by age eight, graduated the Academy a year ago, and according to the rumor mill was well on his way to the Rank of Chunin with the upcoming exam. His family was quite proud of him, and he was the envy of all the girls still trapped and languishing in the academy.
Speaking the ladies there was the immensely cool-headed and direct Hinata Hyuga…who wasn't merely the number one girl; she was the top of the class, period. Like Sasuke she was a late bloomer in her highly influential and powerful clan and it was her first year and she was well on her way to graduating on her first go. Also like Sasuke, she was following behind another family genius, the equally cool and serious Neji Hyuga, who either had a chip on his shoulder or a broom up his ass according to those who had to suffer going to school with him. No one really knew why, being a genius he was prudent to not whine about his life story.
These were the people who learned everything with little difficulty, never had to train too hard, and generally coasted through their schools and succeeded at everything they attempted. They were also resented by everyone who had to actually put in the work and still failed miserably. Meet Naruto Uzumaki, he has failed the final exam two times despite having respectable marks across the board, the favor of his teachers, and being the personal ward of the Hokage himself.
"Clone Jutsu!" The bespectacled blonde commanded, resulting in a blast of smoke that left a mostly lifeless husk of a clone lying on the floor, softly pleading for death. A girl in the back of the class screamed in horror and fainted.
Sitting at his desk, Iruka-sensei stamped a paper. "Fail."
The orange outfit wearing youth, his blue eyes wide behind a pair of spectacles he wore, cried out pleadingly to Iruka. "Give me another chance, please!"
Iruka sighed. He felt truly sorry for the boy, he really did. "I've already given you three chances. Your clones look so bad they're traumatizing your classmates."
"I can get it to work, honest!" Naruto prepared to perform another jutsu. "Just let me-!"
Ino called from the back of the room. "I swear, Naruto, if you make one more clone I will loose my lunch all over the floor."
From the seat next to her, Sakura quipped in. "Give him another chance, sensei"
Ino popped Sakura in the side of the head, Sakura swiftly hit back, and the two got into it, pulling each other's hair and cracking obscenities at each other. As Iruka got up to break up the fight, Naruto let out a frustrated huff and walked back to his seat. Another failure, he was becoming increasingly annoyed by his inability to perform the most basic of jutsu.
"Iruka…" Mizuki-sensei, the other proctor overseeing the test, called over to Iruka as he held Sakura and Ino apart. "Come on, what do you say we give the kid a pass, just this once?"
Naruto brightened at that
"No, he has to create a useful clone." Iruka replied.
Naruto dimmed at that.
Ino kicked Sakura in the shin, and was punched in the face. As Iruka attempted to continue holding them apart, Naruto pulled off his glasses, and rubbed the bridge of his nose in frustration. When he was younger, he had worn goggles because they were cool, but long nights of reading had led to him purchasing some proper reading glasses to better decipher the chicken scratch the Hokage was prone to write in his scrolls. A compliment from Sakura about how he looked in them kept them on his head, while the goggles were handed down to the Hokage's grandson, Konohamaru–they looked better on him anyway.
Next to Naruto, Hinata regarded him with a mixture of pity and respect. Naruto was dedicated and always striving to succeed, easily the hardest working student in the class…so it always brought her a hint of sadness to see him fail these tests. "Naruto-san, would you like if we got ramen after this?"
Hearing the offer, Naruto looked to Hinata and cheered up a little. "Are you paying?"
"Yes." Hinata replied. That cheered Naruto up, Hinata was always so calm and tranquil, and it made her his favorite studying partner–well, after Sakura but Sakura was Sakura and that entailed being amazing. Speaking of, she managed to lay out Ino with a haymaker.
"Don't start what you can't finish, you sow!" Sakura boasted.
"Boom…" Ino threw a book at Sakura's forehead. "…Forehead shot."
Iruka sighed as Sakura crumpled to the ground.
At Ichiraku Ramen later that day, Naruto sighed as he slurped up the top quality ramen served to him by Ayame and her father. Next to him, Hinata was equally loud in her consumption, before she set down her bowl and turned to Naruto. "Don't let your failure discourage you, Naruto-san. You can always take the test next time."
"I thought I was ready this time." Naruto said through a mouthful of noodles.
"Frankly, you weren't. Your clones are pretty terrible." Hearing Hinata blunt as she was, Ayame wondered if she understood the concept of tact. Naruto took it firmly in stride however, and Ayame chose not to speak up.
"I know they are!" He ran his fingers through his shaggy blonde hair, before resting his elbows on the counter. "How am I supposed to become Hokage, if I can't become a Genin?"
"You could always kill the Hokage. I believe that is a legitimate way to take the position." Hinata received a flat look from Naruto. "Right…you don't want to cramp on Konohamaru's style."
Frankly, the prospect of trying to kill The Professor for his spot was about the same as calling Sakura fat to her face and then slapping her backside "to watch it jiggle". Naruto would much rather take the position without a fight from the old man. "I know one thing, there's no way I'm giving up."
Hinata gave a small smile that she quickly covered with a paper fan bearing the Konoha Symbol. "We'll figure it all out one way or another. You'll definitely pass next time."
Pounding fist into palm, Naruto grinned. He leaped from his stool and called up to the heavens. "You bet! Just you watch, I, Naruto Uzumaki will be the greatest Hokage Konoha has ever seen, period! You're going to have to knock down the entire face of the Hokage Wall and use every pebble to build a statue of me!"
The people on the street around the ramen stand paid no mind to Naruto's boast, or so it seemed until a voice called out. "Yo! You, with the blonde hair! Shut the Hell up!"
Naruto blinked, and then sat back down, grumbling. "Every time…"
Hinata opened the fan to hide her face again, and then noticed the arrival of Mizuki. "Good evening, Mizuki-sensei."
Mizuki smiled to the two students before he sat down with them. "Hello, Naruto, I'm sorry about your test."
As Mizuki spoke, Naruto drained the bowl of broth before setting it down. "Don't worry, Mizuki-sensei. I'll just take the test next time and pass for sure! Fourth time's the charm, right?"
Mizuki pretended to be all smiles with Naruto, but the white haired pretty-boy would like nothing more than to get rid of him forever. It was, after all, why he chose him to be the patsy for his gambit. He may have been the Hokage's ward, but he was still dumb as a brick.
"Say Naruto, I wanted to talk about the possibility of a retest." Mizuki said, causing Naruto to stop and grin.
"See? Good fortune comes to those who deserve it." Hinata said from behind her fan.
Naruto excitedly got up from his stool again. "Do you mean it Mizuki-sensei? What do I have to do to pass the test? Tell me! Tell me!"
"Well, it's an old Konoha secret and will require a lot of hard work, but if you're willing to go that extra distance. Come meet me back at the school at sundown, okay?" Mizuki asked as he ruffled up Naruto's hair.
Beaming, Naruto nodded. "I am the master of hard work, Mizuki-sensei! Just you watch I'll pass your retest!"
Mizuki wished he could punch Naruto in the mouth. "Good, have a nice rest of the day with your girlfriend."
Naruto almost reflexively responded. "Hinata's not my girlfriend."
Hinata held her fan up a little higher to hide the blush on her cheeks.
Lying in his bed, tired from a long day's work, Iruka was mulling over his decision to fail Naruto again. He was a good kid, he really was, but giving the kid a shortcut was just out of the question. Even Rock Lee could manage a single proper Clone, the bare minimum to pass, if Naruto got that pass people would only resent him for using his status as the Hokage's ward. Being a ninja was not about cutting corners, even if it was one minor detail.
"Miss one little thing, and it could be disastrous." Iruka lamented. Kind of like the Hokage failing to mention that the seal that held the Kyuubi in Kushina Namikaze would be weakest during childbirth. Maybe if they had been prepared for that possibility…
A knock at the door interrupted Iruka's descent into angst, and he got up to head to the door. Waiting outside was Mizuki, who looked ready to have an episode. "Mizuki, what is it?"
"It's Naruto! He stole a scroll full of forbidden techniques and he ran off with it!" Mizuki cried out.
Iruka stared. "What."
Bits of rolled up tissue sticking out of his nose, Sarutobi tried his best to maintain a semblance of dignity. However, after falling victim to that jutsu, he was hard pressed to shore up any. He looked around the group of gathered ninja, who seemed more surprised and amused than anything else. One shinobi raised his hand. "He hit you with that one, huh?"
"Not even the Hokage can withstand that jutsu." Another said from behind the book he was reading. "I've heard the stories…I think it'd even work on me, too."
A paradoxically large ninja then spoke. "Do you think he could've gone far, Hokage-sama?"
Sarutobi answered. "In all likelihood, he stole the scroll to learn a technique he could pass the exam with. However, there are many forbidden skills within the scroll and in the wrong hands they could be deadly. Find Naruto, and ensure that he is safe above all else."
"Yes, Hokage-sama!" The group of ninja called out before they vanished in formation, and dashed off across the rooftops. Sarutobi smirked; sometimes it was just cool to be Hokage.
In the woods, Naruto rubbed the bridge of his nose before replacing his glasses. It had taken him a few tries, but he had mastered a really impressive technique, the Shadow Clone Jutsu! He quickly performed the seals and then stance, and in a puff of smoke created his own clone. Both he and his clone stared at each other, before grinning.
"I'm going to pass the exam! YES!" Both shouted together as they high-fived. "This is better than some dinky Clone Jutsu, am I right?"
"You're darn right, you're right!" Naruto's clone replied as they high-fived again. Naruto quickly struck a pose.
"First, I become a Genin!" He declared before he pointed to his clone, who also posed.
"Then, Chunin!" The clone popped and locked before pointing back to Naruto.
"Before they know it, I'll be a freaking Jonin!" He and his clone began trading blows, before he struck a fatal blow to the clone's neck, exploding it in a cloud of smoke. The ambient light gleaming off his glasses, Naruto grinned as the smoke cleared. "Then nothing's stopping me from becoming Hokage!"
When the smoke cleared fully behind him, Iruka was there. "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING YOU MOTHERFUCKER!"
His powerful roar knocked Naruto for a loop, and sent him spilling onto the ground before scrambling up to stare at his furious sensei. "I-Iruka-sensei, I see that you've found me…just in time, too! I'm ready to pass the final exam once and for all!"
Iruka folded his arms, and sighed. "This was really it was about, huh? You'll do anything to pass the exam won't you?"
"Not anything, I know how you react to that jutsu, after all…" Naruto looked off as he responded, and Iruka whacked him on the head. "Ow!"
"You cheeky little…" He stopped, and then looked at the scroll. "So you only tried the Shadow Clone, huh? How'd you know it was here?"
"Oh, Mizuki told me about it…" Naruto replied, almost instantly he was shoved to the ground. Looking up, he saw scores of kunai whipping through the air and into Iruka, who managed to block them from hitting his vitals. "Iruka-sensei!"
Turning around, he looked up to the source of his attacker. Sure enough there was Mizuki, standing at the base of a tree with a smug look on his face. "Mizuki-sensei, what are you doing here…?"
"Why else, I came for the scroll." Mizuki said as he tossed a kunai to himself.
"Naruto…that scroll is dangerous! Mizuki used you so he could get his hands on it!" Iruka called out.
Mizuki glanced over to Iruka. "The little pampered brat fell for it too." He looked back to Naruto. "For someone who lives in the Hokage's home, you seem to know very little about all the hidden secrets it has. I'm glad I went through the trouble of scoping the place out before using you, rather than expecting you to know where anything was."
Walking towards Naruto, Mizuki held his hand out. "Hand over the scroll, Naruto and maybe I won't kill Iruka."
"No way, I won't let you have it!" Naruto said as Iruka got up. "I'd never let you take something that belongs to the old man!"
Lowering his hand, Mizuki let out a laugh. "Defiant. You'd be singing a different tune if you knew the wool the Hokage was pulling over your eyes."
Naruto paused, and stared at Mizuki, Iruka too. "What wool?"
"What are you talking about, Mizuki?" Iruka demanded.
Mizuki grinned. "Iruka, you definitely should hear this too."
Naruto took a step back from Mizuki, to better cover Iruka, and prepared to use his Shadow Clone Jutsu. Mizuki spoke. "Twelve years ago, the Nine-Tailed Fox nearly destroyed Konoha, and the Fourth killed it."
"Everyone knows that!" Naruto growled as he performed the hand seals for the Shadow Clone Jutsu. Mizuki interrupted him before he could finish them.
"It was a lie!" Mizuki reached for the large shuriken on his back. "The Nine-Tailed Fox didn't die that night, you see-!"
All the air in Mizuki's lungs left in an instant, driven from his lungs by a positively demolishing clothesline from Asuma Sarutobi, who seemed to appear out of thin air. Gagging for air, Mizuki turned his wide eyes to Asuma, who spoke quietly and calmly despite the cigarette held in his mouth.
"The only reason you're not dead, Mizuki, is because the Hokage would like to know where you learned that little bit of information."
"Big Bro!" Naruto shouted excitedly, before something off to the side caught his attention, the last thing he and Iruka saw were red, piercing eyes before both fell unconscious. Unceremoniously, Asuma dropped Mizuki to the ground and took a drag from his cigarette.
"Well…isn't this a mess." He said aloud to the shadows, and the owners of those red eyes emerged.
"The Interrogation and Torture Division's going to have an enlightening night, brief as it may be." Fugaku Uchiha spoke coolly to Asuma. He looked from Mizuki to the unconscious Naruto and Iruka.
Asuma looked over to them as well. "What do we do with them? If they have even a single clue…"
"Their memories can be handled." Fugaku replied before he turned to Asuma. "Excellent use of restraint, by the way, I was certain you would've killed him."
"We can't kill him yet." Asuma said as he reached down to pick Mizuki up.
Far away, Sarutobi let the smoke drift from his pipe as he grimly watched Asuma and Fugaku's exchange.
The next day at the Academy, Naruto still couldn't believe what had happened. Mizuki had tried to steal the scroll, and he had hurt Iruka pretty badly too. If it hadn't been for Asuma, he would've probably gotten away. Ha, yeah right, if Asuma hadn't shown up Naruto would've spawned like a thousand clones and beat the crap out of Mizuki until he couldn't move! It would have been awesome. Speaking of…
"Naruto." Sarutobi said from the front of the class. Next to him, a bandaged up Iruka was all smiles as he waited for the young man to come down. "As requested by Iruka, in light of last night, how about we give you that retest? If you can create a single clone, you will be recognized as a Genin."
Next to him, Hinata held up her fan and aloofly assured him. "You can do it, Naruto-san."
Getting up, Naruto headed down to the front of the class and adjusted his glasses before performing the hand seals. This was it, Genin was good as his, and by the end of the year, maybe a year and a half he was going to be Hokage! He could barely contain himself.
"SHADOW CLONE JUTSU!"
There was an explosion of smoke, and then screams as the entire classroom became filled with a mosh pit of Naruto clones. Amidst the sea of orange and blonde squirming and struggling for space, the original Naruto stuck his head up and gasped for breath as he looked to Iruka and the Hokage.
"So, did I pass?" He asked.
He was promptly hit in the face with a thrown forehead protector.
A/N: I have nothing witty to put here. Please feel free to review ravenously.
