Chapter 1:
He sighed, the yells and cheers and random chatter played in the background as Naruto Uzumaki sat. Head rested on his crossed arms, next to him sat Shikamaru Nara. Laid back with both eyes closed unaware of the world around him.
On Naruto's other side sat Shino, who was sitting up perfectly straight. His eyes were covered by dark shades so it was impossible to tell what he was focused on. Naruto looked around to the rest of the room, Umino Iruka, they're teacher stood at the front of the classroom lecturing about something also seemingly unaware of the chaos in the classroom.
Sakura and Ino who were sitting on both sides of Sasuke drooled over him as he sat hunched over with a bored look staring straight ahead. Hinata and Kiba were directly behind Naruto, Kiba was entertaining himself with Akamaru while Hinata was sitting there quietly taking notes.
The day passed quickly with nothing out of the ordinary happening. After class Naruto walked slowly back home, arms behind his head. He was feeling incredibly tired recently, he couldn't understand where the feeling was stemming from for an unknown reason.
Maybe it was the pure dullness of life, pondered. While he was deep in thought he had arrived home, he quietly climbed up the stairs and changed out of his shinobi clothes.
He realized that the day was long and he could have gone and trained or done something productive. But the tiredness seemed to swamp all of his senses, after climbing into bed he allowed himself to succumb to the feeling and enter a deep slumber.
He woke up around midnight, the drowsiness seemed gone but he felt almost like some extremely heavy force was pushing him in on all sides. He decided to climb up the ladder to the roof, the stars shone brightly as Naruto returned to his thoughts.
Going back he tried to figure out when this had all started, maybe it was after getting beaten rather badly by Kiba during a spar in class. Maybe the relentless ridicule was finally getting to him, why did he always have to act so stupidly.
He sat there for a few minutes contemplating his situation. Realizing that finding an answer wasn't going to be easy he got up and returned to bed.
Naruto woke up easily, he hadn't slept that well but for some reason his head felt a lot clearer. He smiled at the change and got ready for another day at the academy. The academy, another day getting lectured and ridiculed.
A dizziness suddenly overcame him, he fell back onto bed and clutched his head. Maybe he shouldn't go today, he honestly wasn't feeling well. What do you do when you're sick? Naruto thought to himself.
He wasn't sure if this was what being sick felt like, but since he had never experienced it he was completely unprepared. No one's gonna miss me anyway, he thought depressingly. He shook his head fiercely, when he started thinking like this, he was Naruto Uzumaki.
He was supposed to be the loud, annoying, orange wearing, ramen loving, not very skilled Naruto. Not very skilled, he laughed inside. He really wasn't a very good ninja, but honestly what was the point.
I'm gonna be Hokage, that's the point! But why Hokage? Did he even have what it takes, he was the worst ninja in his class. He laughed out loud. The worst ninja in the academy as Hokage? He laughed again, his neighbor looked at him through his window nervously. Had he gone crazy?
Naruto was wondering about that too, even if he wanted to become strong to be Hokage he still couldn't figure what actually drove him to be Hokage. What did the Hokage even do?
Naruto walked out of his house with a new purpose, he wasn't heading to the academy but instead to the Hokage tower. After a few minutes he arrived, the lady at the front had given him some trouble but he had gotten past her in the end. "Naruto?" "Hey Ojiichan," Naruto called.
"What're you doing Naruto, don't you have class?" The Third Hokage asked. "Yeah but I was feeling sick and I really wanted to talk to you." Sick? Hiruzen thought to himself, with the Kyuubi Naruto had never ever said that he felt sick.
"Maybe you should go get a check up Naruto," the Hokage said cautiously. "Eh, I don't think I need to, but I have a question Ojiichan." "Okay Naruto," he sighed. Naruto was probably just making an excuse. "Ojiichan, what does the Hokage do," Naruto said curiously.
The Hokage looked up confused. "What do you mean?" "Well I rarely see you out of the office so I was wondering what the Hokage does everyday?" Naruto replied. The Hokage nodded in understanding, "Ok, that is a valid question."
"Well it's sad to say, but most of the time I'm doing paperwork." Naruto gasped in shock, The Hokage nodded solemnly. "I also attend many meetings and briefings," Naruto's expression dropped even more. "That sounds terrible," Naruto said, astonished.
"What about fighting other people and doing cool stuff?" "Naruto, those instances do happen but they happen rarely. "They usually happen during a war, which you should hope never happens when you're Hokage." Naruto looked even more depressed as he turned around and started walking out.
The Hokage sighed wondering what had prompted such an out of character interaction with Naruto.
Naruto's day had started terribly, it had somehow become even worse. He walked with his hands deep in his pockets deep in thought.
If that was what the reality of being Hokage, did he really even want to be one? Also why had he wanted to become a Hokage in the first place. He heard yelling and kids running around as he watched as little children played ninja around him.
He needed some peace and quiet to think, he broke out into a run and sprinted home. A minute later he arrived at his house, he got himself a drink and sat down. He reentered his thoughts, to be Hokage you have to be the strongest ninja in the village.
Do I only want to be Hokage because I want to be the strongest? No! He knew that wasn't the real answer deep inside. Everyone recognizes the Hokage as the strongest. Recognizes them as the strongest. His mind went back to him losing against Kiba and everyone laughing at him.
The countless times that people had laughed at him, straight up ignored him and told him becoming Hokage was never going to happen. He didn't hate them, he just wanted to prove them wrong. That's why he wanted to become Hokage.
Was that even a worthy reason to be Hokage, of course he cared for the village. But there were not many people he especially liked. That day Naruto came to a conclusion that would change the course of his entire life. He didn't want to be Hokage.
After coming to the realisation he faced an even larger question, what did he want to do? Naruto was infamous for not listening in class, but that was a lie. Naruto didn't listen most of the time, he listened when something interested him.
He started remembering a lesson on the three sannin, Orochimaru, the snake sannin had left Konoha. Tsunade the slug sannin had also left Konoha, but not as a missing-nin. But the Sannin that really interested him was the third one, Jiraiya, the toad sannin.
Jiraiya was still a Konoha shinobi and was allegedly one of the strongest shinobi that the leaf had. Jiraiya had been traveling the world and had become a writer. For Naruto, Jiraiya's lifestyle appealed to him unlike the Hokage lifestyle.
Being inside the village had never been a pleasurable experience for him other than maybe the Ichiraku's and his Ojiichan. He had never been outside the village, he had only heard about the rest of the world from Ojiichan and Iruka.
He then made another decision that would change his life, he wanted to be like Jiraiya. He wanted to have that freedom and strength, with that position acknowledgement would also come in time. He especially wanted to travel, so he sprinted quickly back to the Hokage's office.
Ignoring the clerks' shrieks of disapproval he threw himself into the Hokage's room.
Hiruzen's eyebrow raised at the out of breath Naruto. "Back so soon?" He said amusedly. "Ojiichan, I want to be like Jiraiya-san!" He exclaimed. Hiruzen's eyebrow remained raised, "What do you mean Naruto?"
"Well, you know how Jiraiya-san travels the world and is really strong! I wanna be like him, I'm tired of being here, I want to have that freedom." He ended as his mask of eternal happiness slowly came off. Hiruzen looked at him carefully, that must've been why he came here earlier.
"Well that is quite a surprise Naruto-kun. I thought you wanted to be Hokage?" He questioned. Naruto thought carefully for a second on how he was going to respond. "Well, no offense but your job sounds really boring.
Jiraiya's sounds fun, you go around the world traveling, doing whatever you want and you get to beat people up along the way because you're crazy strong!" Naruto replied dreamily. "Naruto, why do you want strength?"
The Hokage asked him mysteriously, Naruto could sense that this question was really important so he thought about it deeply before responding. "Originally I wanted power because I wanted to prove everyone wrong, to show everyone that I can be the strongest.
Then I realized that wasn't a very worthy reason, so I started thinking about the people I care about. I guess if I was powerful I could protect people like you and the Ichiraku's, who really matter to me." That is a pretty small list of people, Hiruzen thought to himself.
"Another reason why I want power Ojiichan, is because it'll be fun!" He said grinning, The Hokage sighed and smiled. Naruto was definitely the same old Naruto, he was still a little suspicious over what had caused this sudden change in mentality.
His mind immediately suspected the Kyuubi but all of Naruto's points were valid, he understood the situation from Naruto's view. Konoha had never been an incredibly hospitable home for him due to his Jinchuriki status, of course stories of the world and Jiraiya the gallant would pique his interest.
"Well Naruto, this is a situation that I have definitely never faced before, nor was I prepared for an instance of this sort." Hiruzen was deep in thought over what he should say. He had been planning to have Jiraiya train him, and Jiraiya would have probably taken him out of Konoha.
But that was not what Naruto wanted, he wanted to be like Jiraiya, wandering without much responsibilities. Naruto still didn't know of his Jinchuriki status, and Hiruzen still knew that he wasn't ready yet mentally to find out.
This Jinchuriki status would pose a large problem in letting Naruto out of the village, yet it wasn't unheard of. There were situations like Kumo's Killer B who was given a lot of freedom. Hiruzen also thought about what would happen if he said no to Naruto.
Disturbingly but not shockingly, Naruto didn't have many ties to the village. Was Naruto a flight risk? Hiruzen didn't really think so, he still had some connections to the village. Also Naruto wanted to be like Jiraiya, and Jiraiya was still a Konoha shinobi.
Hiruzen sighed, he could see a lot of problems with allowing this but he just didn't have it in his heart right now to just say no. "Tell you what Naruto, to become a chunin you must partake in the chunin exams.
In the third and final part of the chunin exams there is a tournament between all the participating gennin. To be like Jiraiya you must prove your strength, so I think if you're shooting for that kind of status you should be able to get first place, eh Naruto-kun."
Naruto thought about it carefully, "Of course I'll win Ojiichan!" "Okay, after that we'll talk about this again. But you still have an extremely long way to go, you haven't even made it to the genin test. Consider that your first step."
"Okay Ojiichan," Naruto said excitedly. Then his face dropped, "Ojiichan, I don't think I can pass the graduation exam. I can't do the bunshin." Hiruzen thought carefully, the bunshin required a lot of chakra control.
And with Naruto's otherworldly chakra reserves he doubted even jonin would be able to perform a bunshin in Naruto's situation. Hiruzen thought about it carefully before deciding to take a risk. He stood up and summoned a scroll, he slowly passed the scroll to Naruto.
He showed Naruto the hand signs and taught him how to do the jutsu. After ten minutes Naruto placed his hands in the now infamous cross and as the smoke cleared ten perfect copies of Naruto appeared. "Ojiichan I did it!" Naruto yelled, "Okay Naruto-kun, now dispel them.
"Got it!" The ten perfect copies of Naruto disappeared in satisfying pops and bursts of smoke. He was instantly hit with a minor headache, "Okay Naruto, there are some things you should know about this jutsu.
Firstly, all your clones are solid, so unlike your regular bunshin, you can use them to fight. Even if they will dispel after taking a certain amount of damage. Secondly this jutsu is mainly used for intelligence gathering.
Everything that these clones do comes back to you." "Oh my gosh Ojiichan! That's so cool!" "This has many uses Naruto, as I said before, for intelligence gathering. Also for training, imagine you are using ten clones who are all working on taijutsu or a new ninjutsu.
Once you dispel them you gain all that training. I am not exaggerating when I say that this jutsu in your hands can propel you to and probably even past me and Jiraiya's level. Naruto promptly fainted from the sheer awesomeness of the entire situation.
After Naruto woke up a second later Hiruzen continued, "The problem with this, as you may have already noticed. This rapid absorption of information can overload a person's brain extremely easily which can even lead to death.
The solution to this is to dispel your clones in groups and take time to process all the information." Naruto nodded viciously, "Lastly this jutsu is a forbidden jutsu, so I forbid you from teaching anyone this jutsu. The shadow clone jutsu splits a user's chakra reserves by as many clones they wish to make.
You have very large reserves so I wouldn't worry too much about yourself, just practice caution and restraint." Naruto nodded again. "The thing is other people don't have large enough reserves so this jutsu has the possibility of killing them of chakra exhaustion.
So do you understand the reason this jutsu is forbidden?" Naruto nodded seriously, "Yes Ojiichan!" "Okay good Naruto, have a good night and please try to make it to the academy tomorrow." "Okay Ojiichan, I'll try!" Naruto yelled as he ran out the door.
Weeks passed as the day of the genin exam came. Naruto felt that in that relatively short time he had improved more than he had in his entire time at the academy.
He had started consistently sending a group of shadow clones to the library, he never gave them any specific directions. The only commands he gave were to go to the library and read, right after Naruto went to sleep he slowly dispelled them each one by one.
Even while dispelling them one at a time, the amount of knowledge and experiences that the clones had collected made the mental impact very challenging to deal with. That was why he hadn't sent larger amounts of clones, he was amazed at how quickly he was compiling knowledge, in a few months he might even exhaust the entire library.
Naruto realized that even with the academy his taijutsu wasn't improving. He was in a continuous cycle of never ending defeat in the academy spars. After reporting this to the Hokage he was introduced to a new teacher.
Yugao Uzuki, Naruto knew that she was in ANBU because he had seen her before watching over him. Naruto looked over to the side of his room from his bed. Propped against the wall lay two standard ANBU issued katanas.
He remembered that day very well, sensei had been assessing his taijutsu. After watching him run through some kata she had sighed and rubbed her temple, "Naruto, I hate to be so blunt but your taijutsu is atrocious.
I see some similarities to the academy style but most times you seem to be reverting to a random brawling style." "But this is exactly how I've been taught!" Naruto replied in dismay, "That's exactly the problem Naruto-kun," she sighed deeply again. "The problem here is to fix your taijutsu you would have to forget your style almost completely, but since your current style has been drilled into you for a while that will be difficult."
Naruto's confusion cleared up a bit, "So what do you suggest sensei?" He looked at her quizzically. "Hmmm, have you ever thought of using a weapon?" Naruto glanced at the katana in her sheath, "Not really but I think it would be really cool!"
She smiled at him, "What weapon would you like?" Naruto thought about it for a bit, "I want a sword like Yugao-sensei!" She smiled, "Oh also, can I get two?" She looked at him, "Why?" "Well, you and most other people use one sword so if I use two that would be super extra cool!" He explained excitedly. She laughed and ruffled his hair, "Sure Naruto, sure..."
Ever since then Naruto had gone through rigorous kenjutsu training, he had done many exercises and was also undergoing weight training too. The reason for this was to increase his speed, Naruto had always been one of the fastest in the academy so his kenjutsu style took advantage of it. Naruto was confident that if he released his weights now he would be the fastest academy student.
The daylight seeping in from the windows woke Naruto from his thoughts, shaking the last remnants of sleep he got up. He quickly washed up and put on his shinobi attire.
He had ditched the orange attention calling jumpsuit for a much more appropriate outfit. He wore a gray zipped hoodie with an almost blood red spiral patch on the shoulder. On his back a black dual scabbard held both of his katanas in a cross. He had black fingerless gloves on as well.
On the bottom he had black cargo pants and regular shinobi sandals. He looked at himself in the mirror, his blonde hair lazily hung over his forehead.
Smiling to himself he exited his apartment, instead of walking down the stairs he leaped to the side of the next building using the buildings fire escape to vault himself to the buildings roof. From there he seamlessly landed with a roll and broke into a sprint, leaping from building to building.
When he finally arrived at the academy he quietly entered the classroom, he instantly felt many eyes follow him very closely. As he sat down next to Shikamaru, the boy opened his eyes gingerly. "What's with the swords?" He asked while yawning. "I've been training with them for a while, I just haven't felt the need to bring them here," Naruto replied.
"Troublesome," Shikamaru muttered as he laid his head back down. It had been quite apparent to the rest of the class that Naruto was changing. First were the subtle personality changes, Naruto seemed to be almost keeping a low profile.
He hadn't said anything to either Sakura or Sasuke other than the regular greetings and such. His change in outfits had also been quite polarizing, but the thing that stood out to Shikamaru the most was that Naruto was actually improving as a student and a shinobi.
He had been answering questions in class and doing well on tests, he also had been able to hold his own in taijutsu spars. No, Shikamaru corrected himself. He had become one of the best at taijutsu in their class, the only ones who stood near his level or above were Sasuke and Kiba.
Shikamaru knew he wasn't the only one who had noticed these things, at the beginning Sakura and other Sasuke fangirls had even accused him of trying to change to upstage Sasuke. Shockingly Naruto laughed it off and moved on quickly. Shikamaru smiled, Naruto had truly changed for the better.
After a few minutes Iruka had passed out the written portion of the test. After Naruto finished he was quite confident that he had passed, he had gotten a lot smarter through all the library clones and through training with Yugao-sensei.
After passing the test in, Naruto was tested on the three academy jutsu. He did the henge and kawarimi perfectly, as he got ready to do the bunshin Iruka held his breath hoping Naruto would finally do it.
Naruto put his hands into the cross sign, Iruka was about to interrupt and tell Naruto he was doing it wrong when ten perfect copies of Naruto appeared around the room. "Are these kage-bunshin?" Iruka asked, astonished, Naruto nodded as the rest of the class watched the clones in amazement.
Sasuke glared at Naruto, how had the dead last learned such a jutsu? Iruka sighed happily, "Congratulations Naruto-kun, here's your headband!" Naruto smiled as his clones all popped into smoke. He took the headband and returned to his seat, Chouji, Shikamaru and Hinata congratulated him. He ran his fingers over the etched metal and closed his eyes.
After an hour the academy was released, Naruto walked out into the crowd of parents and headed home slowly. Deep inside he had hoped that maybe Yugao-sensei would be there to congratulate him but he realized that she was really busy as an ANBU.
She probably didn't even think of him as more than a student he thought sadly. A yell broke him out of his stupor, he looked up as his purple haired sensei walked towards him smiling.
His sad mood immediately disappeared as he grinned back at her, "Congratulations Naruto-kun!" she said as she pulled him into a hug. As they walked together Naruto asked, "Yugao-sensei, you're not gonna be my sensei anymore are you?"
Yugao looked down at him, "You're going to get your own team and a new sensei Naruto-kun," she watched as he looked down morosely. "Kouhai lighten up, I'll always be there if you need something, besides you can still work on your kenjutsu with me in our freetime."
That lightened Naruto's a bit, "Okay Yugao-sensei." Yugao bent over and placed a chaste kiss on Naruto's forehead, "I have to go now Naruto-kun, I'll treat you to ramen another day." Naruto blushed and replied quickly, "Okay sensei!"
Deep in thought Naruto decided to take a detour through a training ground on his way home, he heard a soft sound as he turned around to see Mizuki-sensei land behind him. "Hey Naruto-kun, I just wanted to say congratulations for passing!"
Naruto smiled and thanked him, Mizuki looked down for a second and Naruto thought he had seen a change of emotions on Mizuki's face. "Ne, Naruto-kun. Wanna get ramen?"
Deep inside Naruto something was screaming, something about this whole situation seemed wrong. Mizuki had never approached him, this seemed incredibly out of character for him. "Why sensei?" He asked cautiously, "Do I need a reason to take my kouhai for ramen?"
There it was again, all of Naruto's instincts screamed at him to run. "Naruto-kun, what are you thinking about? Just come with me," Naruto still couldn't fathom what was happening and why he felt so wrong in this situation.
He had always felt indifferent towards Mizuki and he had thought Mizuki had thought of him the same way. He had thought that Mizuki was someone he could at least trust a little bit. He had thought that Mizuki was loyal to Konoha.
A large shuriken came screaming through the air, a katana appeared in Naruto's right hand as he deflected it. The impact caused him to roll backwards, as he regained his footing the second katana fluidly appeared in his other hand.
Naruto instantly fell into a defensive stance as Mizuki was already upon him with rapid blows. Naruto managed to dodge or block all of Mizuki's attacks with the blunt sides of his katana, he was still incredibly confused about what was happening.
"Why are you doing this?" Naruto asked as he rolled away from more of Mizuki's attacks. Mizuki seemed a bit crazed as he lunged at Naruto with kunais in his hands.
"Don't you know you fool, don't you understand why everyone hates you, why they ignore you?" Naruto looked at Mizuki, eyes wide. Why everyone ignored him? How was he supposed to know, he guessed that it might have been his pranks. No, that wasn't how it had started.
Even before Naruto's reign as Konoha's supreme prankster he clearly remembered the ignorance. That was the reason why he had started pranking, for attention, to stop the ceaseless ignorance. To him even bad attention was worse than none at all.
Mizuki sauntered towards him, "On October tenth, the Yondaime Hokage never killed the Kyuubi. You know?" What the hell, of course he did! How else was Konoha standing?
"You are it, Naruto Uzumaki!" Mizuki shrieked as he wildly lunged towards Naruto once more, managing to land cuts on his cheeks. Naruto rolled back feeling the blood on his face. "You Naruto Uzumaki, are the Kyuubi."
That couldn't be possible, Naruto was a human. He was sure of it. Sure he was the only one in all of Konoha born on the same day as the defeat of the Kyuubi. Sure he was the only one in the village who suffered this treatment from the villagers.
That would explain it, but then why would the Hokage not have said anything. Something in Naruto started breaking, the Hokage, Iruka, Yugao. They had all lied to him. An orange aura started emanating from him, Naruto raised his head to look Mizuki in the eye.
His pupils had turned into red slits and his entire face had become more predatory. Naruto sensed fear in Mizuki's eyes. "Let me kill you Kyuubi!" Mizuki screamed derangedly as he continued walking towards Naruto.
Naruto was going to die, Mizuki was going to kill him. Naruto growled, a heavy feeling was starting to envelope him. He wasn't going to die here, he still had so much to die. He had to kill Mizuki.
Naruto seemed to calm down, as Mizuki lunged at him Naruto retaliated. He bowed down low and flicked the quick releases on his weights. In the blink of an eye Naruto had launched himself to meet Mizuki in mid-air, both katana's held in a reverse grip.
Mizuki's eyes widened as Naruto seemingly appeared in front of him. Naruto spun as he drove his sword into Mizuki's side. The blade cut through the chunins armor due to Naruto's enhanced strength under the Kyuubi.
But it didn't cut all the way through, as Mizuki shrieked in pain and lashed out with his kunai blindly Naruto planted both feet on Mizuki's and kicked out with all his power. Mizuki rocketed into a tree as Naruto springboarded off of him and landed silently.
Naruto silently wiped his blade on his hoodie and immediately lunged at Mizuki. Mizuki screamed as he was sitting desperately trying to block Naruto's storm of attacks. Naruto calmly pressed on and slashed at Mizuki.
Suddenly Mizuki became a log as he substituted himself off to Naruto's right. Naruto quickly turned and tore through the space between them. Naruto looked into Mizuki's eyes once more right before he struck, this time he was sure of it.
The fear was incredibly apparent in Mizuki's eyes, Naruto grinned devilishly as he sliced his blade cleanly through Mizuki's neck in reverse grip. Mizuki's head rolled off almost comically leaving behind a trail of blood in the grass.
Naruto looked down at himself, his entire hoodie had been covered in Mizuki's blood.
His heightened senses picked up even more people landing behind him. He turned to see multiple ANBU standing there. They were probably there to kill him, Naruto roared as he charged them.
A purple haired ANBU appeared in front of him and wordlessly struck him in the chest turning Naruto's world black.
End of Chapter 1