Death was...unpleasant, at least mine was quick, I made sure of that.
Yeah I killed myself, say what you will but I always believed that your life is yours and nobody has any business trying to decide how you live it and how you end it. I decided mine had run its course and it was about time it ended. How I did it doesn't matter and I certainly don't want to give you any ideas, all that matters is that I thought long and hard about it and I made my choice, I welcomed the cold and uncaring void willingly and with open arms.
I spent quite a lot of time in that void, I'm sure that wasn't very good for whatever sanity I had left but what do I care, I was sure I was simply going to fade away into non-existence eventually. I was never the most sane person, never very good with feelings, either my own or others. I was well adjusted enough that if I wasn't having one of my episodes I could pass as a normal guy just fine and it wasn't like I didn't have ways to deal with them.
Fiction was my release, my drug, what kept me...well me. Books, movies, games, anime and manga, all of it was my passion, I would spend hours at at time in front of a screen, experiencing whole new worlds, new people, new things, it was all so amazing I could never get enough. I was not very good at making friends as a child and while as an adult I could talk to people just fine I never really enjoyed people, even my small group of friends tired me after a while. Fiction was my escape from all that, I projected myself in those worlds, there I was important, there I could fulfill all the expectations that were placed onto me by others and by myself, there I was good enough, the best even, there I mattered.
I still remember the day I first went into the rabbit hole of crimes against writting and masterworks built on a genuine love for certain works know as fanfiction. It was 2 in the morning and I was bored in bed looking at my phone. I had just finished one of my favorite games but still wanted more, I knew about fanfiction and decided to give it a sunrise latter I was exhausted but knew I had found my new obsession.
One thing led to another and I ended up reading Naruto fanfiction, I had just finished the anime and had been in a bit of a Naruto fever. As the years went on and I kept reading I started imagining what I would do if I was in Naruto, how I would train hard and become unstoppable. I created an emotional connection to the show, consuming more and more content about it. It wasn't my only obsession mind you, and I sometimes had to take a break from it, but it was one of my greatest ones.
But I'm getting sidetracked, I was telling you about death. I don't know how long I was in that void but I eventually saw a light, something pulled me towards that light and for a moment I was blinded. When I could finally open my eyes I saw something, or rather someone that if I had any control over my body I would grimace and try to kill. As it was I could only look as Minato Namikaze stood with me in his arms.
I was yanked from his arms and into the ones of a masked man but at that point reality had dawned upon me. I was in Naruto. I WAS Naruto! I couldn't believe it. All those hours thinking about this exact situation and now its real, all I could think of was all the things I was going to do, all the power I would posses, it would be amazing. I was so deep in my thoughts that I only noticed something was happening when I felt a brush against my stomach.
I remembered this moment. It was when the Kyuubi was sealed inside Naruto(Me! I could barely believe it!). For a moment I thought about trying to disrupt the seal, spill ink everywhere and ruin the ritual, ensuring that this bastard that would use his own son as a human sacrifice would die for nothing and his precious hellhole of a village would soon follow, but I did not. If he wanted to give me the most powerful tailed beast in a silver platter who was I to say no. I was sure I could persuade Kurama to give me its power fairly easily, and when I became powerfull enough I could destroy this village myself if I wanted to.
As I watched Kurama's massive paw come towards me with the intent to crush me into a gory stain and my would be parents being run through with one of its claws all I could do was smile. If only they knew what they unleashed upon the world that day, if they could see the consequences of their actions, I like to believe that my sperm donor(not my father, never my father) saw a bit through that smile as he was sacrificing his soul to the shinigami, that he could glimpse into the man that was inside that baby and that he could see the utter hatred I held for him and his bitch and the amount of vindictive pleasure I felt at looking at them dying in the floor and their precious village in flames.
As I lay there in the grass, almost shaking in excitement at what would come, what I would achieve, all I could think of was:
"Oh yeah, I'm gonna burn this fucker to the ground!"
Six Years Latter
Naruto was sitting on his bed in a meditative position, eyes closed and breathing steady. He had just recently moved from the orphanage to his apartment and had started attending the academy where he would become a ninja. The past six years had been tame all things considered, he wasn't popular in the village but he wasn't really a people person so it didn't really bother him and outside of the glares and the occasional rude comment he was just fine.
"I knew the worst of Naruto's childhood was fanon but honestly this is a lot better than I was expecting" He thought.
Things had been playing out just as he expected them, the Hyuuga Affair had happend a few years ago and from what he heard it was the same as canon, he was also hearing rumors of Uchiha discontent but the massacre hadn't happened yet.
"Maybe I should go shopping for some sharingan when it does, take a page out of Danzo's book" Naruto wondered to himself with a chuckle.
He had spent the past six years trying to mimic the usual growth of a child, albeit a prodigy. He considered restraining himself to being normal or even as slow as canon Naruto had been but decided that in a village of ninja he would most likely be found out and if he was too slow then suddenly had a power boost when the situation called for it he would be suspicious. Showing off too much could be problematic but flying under the radar too much would also get in the way of his plans, he needed certain resources to grow stronger and it would be easier to get them by showing potential.
Speaking of resources to grow stronger he was currently trying to contact the Kyuubi, he was confident he could use his meta knowlege to strike a deal with Kurama and its power would be very useful not only in combat but also in fueling his own training, not to mention the knowledge it must have picked up on during the time between being formed from the ten tails and now.
He focused on the seal on his stomach and tried to go to it, to enter his mindscape. As he controlled his breath he felt something pulling at his consciousness and let himself get pulled. When he opened his eyes he was in the familiar void he had spent so much time in prior to his reincarnation, in the distance he saw the massive bars of a cage where he could feel the malevolent chakra of the Kyuubi.
As he walked towards it the oppressive feeling grew heavier by each step he took, by the time he got to the bars the very air around him seemed to be saturated by it. A single red eye opened and looked down at him before another followed and a deep voice spoke to him.
"So my jailor has finally come to demand my power. You humans are all the same." The Kyuubi said.
"Demand is a strong word, I came to negotiate your help" Naruto said.
"Arrogant little human, what could you possibly have to offer me?" The Kyuubi asked.
"Revenge for one, both on the man who controlled you six years ago and also on Madara Uchiha who got you trapped in a human in the first place" Naruto said with a smirk.
"Foolish human, that bastard Madara is dead!" The Kyuubi shouted.
"That he is, the thing is, he already has plans in motion to be resurrected, he plans to fuse you and the other tailed beasts back into the ten tails and then become its junchuriki and use its power to trap the world in an illusion" Naruto said.
"How to you know about the ten tails human?"
"Oh I know a lot of things, and I'll gladly share them with you too, but this calling me human thing is tiring, I'll call you Kurama and you can call me Naruto."
Kurama was about to demand how this human knew their name but was stopped when Naruto raised his palm and said "First our deal, I want full cooperation from you when using your chakra as well as your knowledge when it comes to my training, we will be partners and we will help each other whenever we can, in exchange I will kill the man who controlled you, destroy Madara's plan and get you your other half"
Kurama was shocked that Naruto even knew that it was missing its other half, they thought about Naruto's deal and said " We have a deal, but I want to know how you know all these things you shouldn't know"
"Pleasure doing business with you" Naruto said, smiling.
They spent the next few hours discussing Naruto's previous world, reincarnation and future events. Kurama was more than a little shocked but with its emotional sensing capabilities they could tell Naruto was telling the truth.
"-nd then he used the reverse harem jutsu to stun her and land a hit on her!" Naruto said.
"Ha! Serves that old hag right, goddess of chakra she may be but she is still horny!" Kurama laughed
"You know, you mentioned fanfiction but you didn't go into details. What is it?" It said. Naruto looked away and said "..You don't wanna know."
Kurama growled at him and said " This information is part of our deal and if you don't tell m-"
"In it you're a submissive slut who craves cock and will whore your power away to get it and its all downhill from there" Naruto said, deliberately not looking into Kurama's eyes.
"...You know what, on second thought, I think I'm fine, I don't want to know" Kurama said.
"Human depravity knows no bounds"
"Indeed"
"...So, did you pick up anything usefull in your immortal lifespan?"
"You know I'm a giant orange fox right? I don't exactly scream stealth"
"Well...shit"
Six years latter
As it turned out Kurama did have usefull skills to teach, mostly picked up from when it was inside its previous jinchuriki. That combined with Naruto's memories from the show allowed them to achieve a lot in regards to training, the first of which was recreating the shadow clone jutsu.
Thanks to that and the fact that the mindscape proved more pocket dimension than metaphysical space allowed Naruto to leave shadow clones training there while he went about his day and at night they would try to recreate jutsu from the show or work in original ideas. The mindscape unfortunately did not allow Naruto to train his body, namely because while in the mindscape Naruto's body was usually in bed so they had to come up with a solution. That came in the form of the previous jinchuriki's knowledge, it took a while but eventually they had special gravity seals that would improve with the user to allow them to maintain a certain level o strength and speed while still allowing the user to grow stronger. Having two seal masters to draw from was proving to be very usefull indeed.
With all the constant training and the shadow clones, while he might not really be a prodigy, he might as well be the greatest one of them all. If not for Itachi's bad track record on the matter, his own refusals and the fact that he held himself back to only show he was on par with Sasuke he would have graduated the academy years ago.
While he was on a time limit if he was going to take maximum advantage of certain events he couldn't change too many big things before he was ready lest his knowledge could prove obsolete and his whole plan would crumble.
He was in his academy classroom waiting to be called for his graduation time in the academy had been tranquil, while it was true most teachers didn't like him they weren't unfair to him most of the time, and with him competing with Sasuke for rookie of the year and carefully making sure he was slightly behind him there wasn't much they could do to him without being obvious about it.
He didn't really have a social life outside the academy and inside it wasn't much better, he was perfectly nice to everyone but didn't go out of his way to make friends. On his first week a few of the bigger kids tried to bully him and he beat them all up by himself, after that people tended to leave him alone. He did have a few acquaintances though.
Sasuke Uchiha didn't even spare a glace at him at first but after he beat Sasuke on their first spar the boy had developed a sort of rivalry where Sasuke was ahead in academic pursuits by a small margin but Naruto tended to do better in physical parts of training.
He had tried to stay clear of Shikamaru Nara and outside the occasional spar in class he succeeded. He could defeat him just fine but Nara were smart and he didn't want to take any chances with being found out before it was too late.
Hinata Hyuuga was a nice girl, he had ended up helping her like canon Naruto did and she developed a crush on him. He knew about it but had no intentions of corresponding her feelings, even if she was not 12 and he didn't see himself as an adult his plans did not really allow for relationships.
And then there was Sakura Haruno, she was nowhere near as bad as fanfiction had led him to believe but she was still annoying, especially since, thanks to him being on par with Sasuke, she always though that he was trying to one up him. He did not like her at all but as much as he wanted he couldn't let her die in a mission. She was too relevant to the plot and there was no way to know the fate of team 7 if she died, they could be put on hold until another genin could take her place, they could be disbanded and slotted in other teams, no, the plan required that he deal with her annoyance and he would not ruin it just because of her.
As he was waiting the teacher Umino Iruka walked in and called his name. True to canon the teacher had started not liking him but eventually managed to look past his resentment to see him as Naruto and not the Kyuubi, even if he was no longer the dead last and class clown. Contrary to canon however, Naruto did not care for Iruka, he believed that being able to look past his bias was the bare minimum and was not worthy of praise, and even if he did he was still Konoha and therefore not someone Naruto cared for.
He walked into the examination room and saw two tables, in one of the was seated Mizuki,the assistant teacher and not so secret traitor, then again who was he to talk, he had every intention of dealing with Orochimaru when the time came. In the other table sat Iruka, he turned to Naruto and said "Well Naruto is time for the exams though with your grades you should be fine, now perform the henge"
Naruto looked at him before rippled and changed into Iruka.
"No handseals and no smoke, impressive, now perform the kawarimi" Iruka said.
Again without seals Naruto changed places with a chair in the back of the room.
"Very good, now the bunshin" Iruka said.
A clone of Naruto appeared besides him and they both smirked at Iruka and Mizuki.
"Congratulations Naruto, you pass, you're now a gennin of Konoha"Iruka said with a smile.
"Hey Iruka-sensei, how are the class rankings now?" Naruto asked.
"Well with your score you're just behind Sasuke for rookie of the year, sorry Naruto, I know you wanted the title" Iruka answered. Naruto made sure to look crestfallen before nodding and walking away. As he was on his way back to the classroom he thought to himself "Did he buy it?"
"Hook, line and sinker" Kurama answered with a chuckle.
"Good, the forbidden scroll of sealing is too good an opportunity to pass up"
"Have you already decided which jutsu you will 'learn'?" Kurama asked.
"The shadow clone and its explosive variant, It will be usefull to be able to use them in public" Naruto answered.
"You're going to copy every jutsu in there aren't you?"
"Of course, I'll need the Edo Tensei eventually and more power is always good'
Naruto then heard someone call to him, he had to suppress the urge to smirk when Mizuki told him about a secret test and how it would give him enough points to take the top spot.
Latter that night
Naruto had just sneaked out of the Hokage tower, forbidden scroll of sealing in hand. He had managed to avoid to Hokage and got away without being seen, and now he was on the forest near where Mizuki told him to meet him. He made a shadow clone with the scroll in hand and the clone that appeared also had a copy of the scroll with him, he nodded at the clone who sneaked away to a prepared hidden spot where there where several clones and writing material prepared to copy the scroll.
"What do we do now?" Kurama asked.
"Now we wait and pretend to be studding the scroll" Naruto said.
This was how Iruka found Naruto a few hours latter. Iruka had been called to hunt down the culprit of the theft of the forbidden scroll of sealing and recover the scroll, he was looking through the woods where he felt Naruto's chakra signature. He found the blonde sitting under a tree, reading through the scroll, he aproached him.
"Naruto what are you doing!?"
"Iruka-sensei? I thought Misuki sensei was the proctor of this test?"
"Mizuki? What test Naruto?" Iruka asked, confused.
"The extra credit test, Mizuki-sensei said that if I could steal the scroll without being caugth and bring it to him here I could be rookie of the year" Naruto answered.
Before any more could be said a fuuma shuriken came flying towards Naruto, Iruka, unaware that his student saw it coming and was perfectly able to dodge, jumped in front of it and took it to his back. Mizuki came out of the woods and said "Give me the scroll brat!"
"No, Naruto don't give it to him, he's lying to you!"Iruka shouted while trying to stand.
"Shut up, now give it here demon" Mizuki said while walking towards Naruto"
"D-Demon?" Naruto said, visibly shaken while inside he was holding back the laughter.
"That's right, didn't you ever wonder why the villagers hate you? Don't you want to know?" Mizuki sneered.
"Mizuki, no! Its forbidden" Iruka said, only to be kicked in the head and fall unconscious.
"I'll tell you, 12 years ago the Kyuu-"
"Hey Kurama, is the old bastard listening in?" Naruto thought.
"No, I've been keeping an eye out, there is nobody around to interupt" Kurama said.
"Nobody to hear the screams you mean" Naruto thought with a chuckle before continuing "Say now that I have a plausible excuse to know the shadow clone jutsu how about you come out and play for a bit"
"You know me too well"
"That's right, you're the Kyuubi in human form!"Mizuki shouted.
"Yeah Mizuki, the thing is, I'm not, but if you want to meet the Kyuubi in human form I'll be happy to help, its the least I can do since you were stupid enough to take the blame for me stealing the scroll, I'll be certain to make good use of the knowledge within."
Mizuki actually paled at that but before he could do anything a single shadow clone appeared besides Naruto, the clone's eyes turned red before it spoke with a deep voice.
"You humans, your stupidity knows no bounds, always playing with fire" He let out a dark chuckle "It's high time you get burned don't you think" He said with a grin before dashing towards Mizuki at speeds he couldn't even follow. The clone grabbed Mizuki by the face and slammed him through a few trees before throwing him to the ground. He steeped on Mizuki's chest with enough force to break several ribs and then kicked him into another tree. Mizuki was on the floor barely able to breath when the clone grabbed him by the neck.
"Patetic, you insects should just crawl in a hole and await death" He growled.
Naruto who was watching with an amused expression said "Not to ruin your fun but the ANBU will find us eventually"
Kurama growled again before looking at Mizuki and saying "Looks like you got lucky, I won't be able to take my time with you, but don't worry, even though it will be quick it will hardly be painless" Kurama said before exploding, blowing Mizuki apart and leaving him agonizing on the floor.
By the time the ANBU arrived at the source of the explosion they saw an unconscious Iruka, a dead Mizuki and Naruto waiting for them, scroll in hand. By the time he arrived at the Hokage tower Iruka had already been taken to the hospital, Naruto walked into the Hokage office.
His relationship with the Hokage was not positive, he made it look like he resented the Hokage for keeping the reason the villagers hated him and the identity of his parents and while Hiruzen certainly tried to connect with and help the boy he couldn't tell him the truth. Of course what he didn't know was that the "boy" was always aware of both.
Naruto walked in and Hiruzen greeted him "Naruto"
"Sarutobi" Naruto said coldly and Hiruzen felt dejected. The boy Initially called him Hokage-sama but as the anger at being denied answers grew the boy made no attempt to hide his disrespect and while he tried to make the boy see him as a friend or demanded respect from him the former always failed and the latter only led to an argument he couldn't afford to have right now.
"What happend"He asked.
"Mizuki lied to me"The just like you was left implied.
"Explain"
"He told me it was a test, that if I stole the scroll he would make me rookie of the year, Iruka told me the truth and Mizuki confirmed it while gloating. We fought and I killed him using one of the jutsu I learned from the scroll"
"I see" Hiruzen said. "I will reward you for catching the traitor, how does a B rank mission pay sound for you"
"Adequate" Naruto said.
"Very well, if there's anything else?" Hiruzen asked.
" There is" Naruto said. When Hiruzen motioned him to continue he said. "Mizuki told me about the Kyuubi"
Hiruzen froze for a moment before looking at the boy and saying "I'm sorry Naruto, I wanted you to have a normal childhood, I didn't want you find out this way"
Naruto merely looked at him and said "You mean you wanted me to find out in a controlled environment, where you could spin the story to make yourself as a hero and make me want to use the Kyuubi's power how you want it to be used"
"Its not like that Naruto, I'm really sorry, you were supposed to be seen as a hero"
"If only excuses could change the past my sperm donor and egg bank wouldn't have made me a jinchuriki"
"So you also know about your parents" Hiruzen said, trying to ignore the terms he used for them.
"I have no parents, the Namikaze bastard and his bitch lost that right when they used my as a human sacrifice" Naruto said bitterly.
"Naruto don't call them that!" Hiruzen said sternly.
"And why the hell not, they orphaned me, made me a fucking living weapon, and the whole reason I went through all this bullshit is because of them!" Naruto shouted, he then glared at Hiruzen and said "And you had no right to keep any of this from me and yet you did! You've been lying to me all my life and you expect me to be okay with all this? Fuck no!"
"They loved you Naruto but they had to protect the village" Hiruzen said.
"If they actually gave a damn about me they wouldn't have made me a slave to this village, I never had a choice, I always had to become a ninja,to fight and kill and die for the sake of a village that hates me and its all their fault!"
Hiruzen made to retort but before he could Naruto interrupted him.
"No! I've had it up to here with excuses, I am always the one who suffers for it, always getting the short end of the stick, and its always for the sake of the village or for the greater good or some other bullshit. What about my good, what about loking out for Naruto, I'm neither expendable nor any less important than any of those miserable bastards out there, but you know what? I get it, the message was pretty fucking clear when the people who should have cared for me above all else made me a fucking demon container instead of sticking around to raise me. I'll look out for myself, I'm the only one I can trust, I will get stronger because I decided to so, I will make something out of myself because it is my choice and I will achieve my goals no matter what anyone says about it because nobody cared when I needed them so why should I care when they need me, I will achieve my happiness no matter how much blood sweat an tears need to be shed and then I will come back and shove it all in your face." Naruto finished shouting before he stormed out of the office.
Hiruzen could only sigh and look at picture of his successor "Why wasn't I the one to seal the Kyuubi and you survived Minato? You wouldn't have made the mistakes I did"