For the next few years anytime that wasn't spent at the school was spent at Sasuke's house. As soon as Mikoto had heard that Naruto was the son of Kushina, who was a great friend of hers, she welcomed him easily into her home. However, Uchiha-san spent most of his time avoiding even making eye contact with Naruto. Any moment they were in the same room together he would either find a reason to insult Naruto or just glare at him. Time spent at the Uchiha manner was either spent training or playing and listening to music. When they were older they had opened a small restaurant that had a piano in a corner of its dining room. All three could play the piano, but it seemed as though Naruto was the best at it. Each of them also had their own instrument that they played. Naruto had the violin, Sasuke had the guitar, and Sakura had the flute.

The three of them trained a lot during the years. They had almost returned to the strength they had when they were older, but they remained in the same places in their class. Naruto was the idiot of the year, Sasuke was the rookie of the year, and Sakura was somewhere in between. They made sure to remain in these places because they did not want to be put on separate teams.

Today was the last day that they would have to come to this school. It was their graduation day. Naruto had stayed at Sasuke's house the night before so they went to school together. Naruto was wearing a white sleeveless shirt that cut just above his stomach – now that he no longer had the seal on his stomach he liked to show off his skinny figure using tighter clothes – with white gloves that started at the elbow and ended at his wrist all of this was covered in a long-sleeve mesh shirt that hooked around his thumbs. He wore loose fitting white pants that hung on his waist, but were tight enough to not fall any lower. On his lower left pant leg was a black insignia that looked like flames, but if you looked close enough you would see that it's actually the nine-tailed fox. On his right thigh he wore a black shuriken holder and strapped to his left hip was a white sword.

Sasuke wore a black sleeveless shirt that buckled in the front and three belts hung around his waist. One belt was keeping his black pants up around his waist, another held a black sword, and the other concealed many explosive tags. His pants were loose, but not baggy and his black weapons pouch was on his right thigh. On the back of his shirt was an Uchiha symbol.

On their way to school they met up with Sakura. She hadn't stopped wearing pink, but now it was more of a hot pink then the bright pink she used to wear. Her hair was cut short again and it was held back by the headband that Ino had given her. She wore a low cut t-shirt that didn't show off too much. Under it she wore a black mesh shirt that reached her elbows she wore a short skirt that had a slit up the left side with a pair of black shorts underneath it. She had her weapons pouch strapped onto her waist and right next to it was a pouch with many bottles of herbs in it.

"Naruto, why are you walking with your eyes closed?" asked Sakura as she fell into step with the two of them.

"He's had his eyes closed ever since we left the mansion," said Sasuke.

"I'm training," answered Naruto.

"With your eyes closed?" asked Sasuke.

"You never know when you're eyes will stop working, teme," answered Naruto.

"Dobe."

"Naruto. You aren't going blind are you?" asked Sakura with concern.

At that Naruto giggled a little. "No, Sakura, but in the future I will have times when I cannot use my eyes. I thought I might train now so that if the time ever comes along again I'll be ready." Sakura nodded. There was a long pause as they walked peacefully through the road. "Should I fail the exam?" asked Naruto.

"Of course not dobe. If you fail then you won't be in our group. Don't be so stupid," grumbled Sasuke.

"You forget, teme, I failed last time. I want to know if I should fail this time to get Mizuki to target me to get the scroll," said Naruto as he opened his eyes to see the school was just before them.

"No," answered Sasuke, "We don't want to take the chance. We'll just watch him after the exams." Naruto nodded as they walked to their class.

After the exams all three of them had passed. Both Sasuke and Sakura had made perfect bunshins and Naruto had made one that just barely passed. He was actually surprised by how hard it was to make the clone. After he learned how to make the real clones he hadn't really taken the time to learn how to do the illusions and he still hadn't learned it well enough to make a perfect one, but he was able to make one that would help him pass.

After the exam Mizuki had disappeared and the three of them had decided to split up to look for him. If either of them found him they would call the others using the mind link that they had made when they were older. They could talk to each other without actually saying anything, but they couldn't force themselves into the others minds.

Naruto was walking in the middle of the street when he was stopped by Mizuki. "Is there something wrong Mizuki-sensei?" he asked out loud as he called out to the others silently.

"I just want to talk to you about something. Why don't we walk together?" he said with a friendly smile. Naruto smiled back as he heard Sasuke say, "We're on our way Naruto."

They walked together for a little bit before Mizuki turned to him and said, "He's annoying isn't he?"

"Who Mizuki-sensei?" asked Naruto.

"Sasuke," was Mizuki's answer, "He's always getting everything he wants and he's cocky. It must be annoying to you who had to work for everything you ever had."

"Yea," growled Naruto. In his head he was laughing at Mizuki's stupidity. Almost everybody knew that Sasuke and Naruto were like brothers. Apparently Mizuki isn't very good at paying attention.

"I know a way you could learn a jutsu that not even Sasuke knows," said Mizuki lowering his voice to a whisper.

"Really?"

"Yea. All you have to do is get the secret scroll from the Hokage's office and read it. It has a whole lot of great jutsus." Naruto's eyes lit up as he sensed Sasuke and Sakura close by.

"Can you believe it?" he thought, "He's still trying to trick me into stealing that scroll." He heard two laughs in the back of his mind as he listened to Mizuki tell him about all the plans he had to get the scroll.

Naruto was waiting in the secret place that Mizuki had so kindly told him about with the scroll opened in front of him. He looked up as he sensed Mizuki come closer. He knew that both Sasuke and Sakura were waiting somewhere within the trees for his signal.

"Good job Naruto," he said with a smirk on his face, "Now give me the scroll."

"But I can't learn anything from the scroll if you have it," said Naruto, "How will I get any stronger?"

"You think that this village actually wants you to be strong demon?" asked Mizuki.

"Wh-what do you mean?" asked Naruto. Even though he had known this was coming, it still hurt to see such hatred in people as was shown in Mizuki's eyes.

"Everyone knows except you. They're trying to hide it from you even now. They'd do anything to shut me up," he said.

"What are you talking about Mizuki-sensei?"

"The decree that no one can tell you that the nine-tailed fox is inside you. The fox-spirit that destroyed our village has taken over your body. You are the nine-tailed fox," Naruto could hear Sasuke growling in the back of his mind, and the Inner Sakura was yelling obscenities, "They've all been sneaking around. Hiding things from you your whole life. Didn't you think it was strange how they treated you? Like dirt. Like they hated you for just being alive."

"No," said Naruto gripping his head. It hurt so much and Mizuki just wouldn't shut up.

"That's right you will never be accepted in this village. Even your class mates hate your guts."

Sasuke had had enough. He jumped out of his hiding place and launched himself towards Mizuki. Mizuki wasn't expecting it so he wasn't able to move in time. Sasuke pierced one of his kunai through Mizuki's left shoulder. He howled in pain as Sasuke brought his foot up to kick him off the branch. Sasuke jumped down to Mizuki and stood over him with a kunai to his throat. "Time to go to the Hokage's office, Mizuki-sensei." The last two words were dripping with anger.

Mizuki growled curse words all the way to the Hokage's office. When they got there Mizuki pulled himself away from them and ran inside.

"Hokage-sama!" he yelled.

"Yes?" asked the Hokage as Sasuke, Sakura and Naruto walk in.

"These three are working together," he said pointing to the three of them, "I think they were planning on betraying the village and taking the forbidden scroll with them."

The Hokage's eyes widened as he heard of this. He turned to see that Naruto still had the forbidden scroll on his back, but Naruto pulled it off and handed it to the Hokage. Just as the scroll switched hands it poofed into a cloud of smoke. When the smoke cleared there was only a small twig in his hand. Mizuki's eyes widened to the size of dinner plates.

"Hokage-sama," said Sakura, "This man tried to trick Naruto into stealing the scroll, and then he spoke of the S-class secret about the nine-tailed fox."

"Mizuki," said the Hokage, "You are under arrest for betraying the village and for speaking of and S-class secret." Two ANBU appeared in the room and took Mizuki by the arms and dragged him kicking and screaming out of the room. "Thank you," said the Hokage to the three of them.

"You're welcome," answered Sakura with a smile as they left the room.

Outside of the room Sasuke turned to Naruto and asked, "Are you ok Naruto?"

Naruto nodded and said, "I just didn't think that Mizuki would be able to get into my head again. I thought I was ready for it this time, but I guess I wasn't."

Sakura pulled Naruto into a hug and whispered quiet soothing words while petting his hair. After a few moments Naruto calmed enough to walk home and play his music. That had always calmed him in the future and it easily calmed his mind now.