Idea for a trap-making Naruto. I came up with this when I started writing a Chameleon chapter and I had to put it up...
Deception was the greatest Ninja tool, and one that Naruto mastered from the cradle. He had to if he was to survive with his sanity in tact. From a young age, he realize how little people actually cared for him, and how little they expected out of him. So he kept quiet and did not speak, choosing to observe and learn from a distance. It was through this that he learned how often the smarter kids were being taken away... how they always seemed to go missing...
Naturally he was scared of going missing himself and thus made a fake self, a Mask that was essentially a concentration of all those kids that were ignored by the world... Being only Four when he made it, the Mask was extremely annoying and he learned to Loathe it... but it was surprisingly effective so it stuck around. Thanks to it, no one expected that he was secretly stealing the academy books from the other orphans, both those learning Ninja Skills or Civilians ones. It didn't matter, he stole them so he could get smarter and get an education... even if no one wanted him too.
After the Old Man offered for him to move out and become a Ninja, Naruto Took to sneaking out at the dead of Night to train in what he had read. He could have graduated by the time he was Seven, well not really as that damn Clone Jutsu took too little chakra to perform... but he had easily mastered everything Else. His taijutsu was fast and Accurate, holding a great deal of Power. His Aim was perfect, having practiced on squirrels and birds to master it. He could substitute with anything and could use the transformation with an accuracy that would trick nearly any other...
However his greatest combat skill was something he did not learn from a book... No instead it was something he learned via his Pranks. Started to vent his rage, Naruto was surprised how easy it was to slip away and set up traps and pranks, catching even the ANBU in them. He started to make personal challenges to improve his skills, with the painting of the Hokage Monument being his greatest one...
Seeing the Parallels to trap Making, Naruto Started to work on those in private, reaching a Mastery with ease...It was easy to look at a Prank and see exactly how someone would react to it, using that Knowledge to create layers to his traps... It was then that Naruto realize that he had reached mastery and made it a point to harness this skill whenever he could...
Kurama somehow had sensed this, and awakened from his slumber, drawing them together. What should have been a meeting between great foes was instead a meeting of Kindred Souls, and with that Naruto gained his first ally and friend. Kurama became akin to a father figure and used his centuries of Life to help Naruto to Mature into something far greater then he could expect.
Putting their heads together, they even found a way for Naruto to Make Regular Clones and Pass the test, the third time. It was simple, the reverse of What Most Jinchuuriki's did. Basically Kurama drew in all of Naruto's chakra, leaving enough to summon the clones and pass the fucking test.
Of course, this brought Naruto to where he was now, Sitting on the Roof top, next to Sakura, Sasuke and Watching Kakashi as they started to talk about themselves...
Naruto had decided to start to drop his mask... it was getting annoying and could kill him if he kept it up in the field after all...