Author's Notes:

Hello again readers! Welcome back to the next installment of Relentless! As always I hope you enjoy! I wanna try something a little different this upload though. I got a couple of questions in the reviews I think would be good to address. If you're uninterested then feel free to skip through until you hit nonbolded text!

Question 1: Will Naruto still be receiving a Summoning Contract?

- Honestly, I hadn't exactly planned this specific detail out in the outline I have. I'm not super fond of the trope where Naruto gets a crazy, off the wall summon but if you guys have suggestions then feel free to PM me or leave a review stating whether or not you think he should or should not receive a contract. If you do think he should then also state your ideal contract and I'll tally up votes and heavily take them into consideration!

Question 2: Are there any sort of pairings in this fic?

- Another great question! It wasn't my original plan to have Naruto paired off with anyone as the trauma of having the only one you love erased from your life would make you, at minimum, terrified of making connections again. However, I'm not against it. Same deal with the summoning contract, leave a review or PM me your vote/opinion and I'll take it into consideration!

Chapter 9: Different

Naruto sat down in the uncomfortable desk positioned roughly in the middle of his first class. They had ended up stalling the beginning of the semester by a week to give time to the people who lost friends or family in the great tragedy so he practically hadn't missed a day of school. He spent the extra time that was made available training himself until he couldn't move and then developing plans for the future.

He looked around the room, making an attempt to gauge the other students. He could very obviously differentiate between the children who came from clans and the children who had made it from civilian backgrounds. There were honestly less total children than he expected.

"I wonder if they can tell that I'm not from a clan….."

After a short wait, the teacher walked into the room, the bell rang and the door closed. Once the door was squarely locked and the students had quieted down, the teacher began writing on the board. He finished writing, turned around, and gestured to the name he had written on the board.

"Hello class, my name is Iwana Akame and I will be your instructor for today."

He turned and wrote down a few more names on the board behind him.

"I will be working alongside several other teachers to prepare you for the exit exams, both the written and physical portions. Our goal, as teachers, is to ensure that you all graduate to genin."

He scanned the classroom for a bit, regarding the different children with an analytical twinkle in his eye.

"I can see some real potential in this group." he said with a smile.

"Now! Everybody get out to the courtyard. The first thing we're going to do is have ourselves a little sparring competition to gauge where we're starting from."

His words were met with a mixed response. Some, like the more aggressive of the clan children, looked eager to prove their worth and begin showcasing what they had learned. Others, mostly the civilian children, looked nervously from right to left in an attempt to measure themselves against others and estimate their chances.

Nearly every child in the room either whispered or gave an extended gaze over to Naruto's direction at least once through this short time. It wasn't hard to tell why. He had stopped wearing his bulky, concealing clothes and instead decided on a simple short and shirt combo. His…..unique…..physiology was on full display because of it. When you took into account that he was head and shoulders taller than the second tallest child, he was quite literally the elephant in the room.

The teacher quieted everyone down and began organizing them into some loose line so he could herd them out the door into the yard. The courtyard ended up being a simple setup. There was a raised sparring ring in the center, obstacle courses over to the side, and various targets and training dummies littered across the different areas. Naruto nodded to himself.

"This'll do."

He then turned to the teacher who had begun gathering the students attention.

"Alright, we have a loose collection of files on you all but aside from your basic information, we don't know much about your capabilities. So here's what we're going to do; We are going to ask for volunteers to step into the ring and spar. The winner will stay in and we'll randomly select another participant to replace the loser."

The teacher smirked and scanned the crowd of nervous children in silence. Letting the tension sink in before simply stating.

"Any volunteers?"

Two hands shot up before any others. Naruto looked off to the side to see who else in the class was eager to step into the ring and met the gaze of a wild looking child with brown, messy hair and red markings on his face. The teacher took note.

"Alright will…..Naruto Uzumaki and…..Kiba Inuzuka make their way into the ring please."

Squaring off against his opponent, Naruto could practically taste the cockiness wafting off of this child. He had the advantage of a clan who trained him practically since he could stand and he knew it; Couple that with the almost feral grin the animalistic child was giving his opponent and Naruto could tell that this kid wasn't here to go easy or make friends.

"I'll try to go easy on you chump, just try to keep up will ya!" Kiba challenged.

Naruto's face pulled down into a frown. As he thought to himself.

"That's fine. Because I'm not here to make friends either!"

The second the teacher called the start, Kiba took off in a bid to catch his opponent off guard. It probably would have worked on a normal civilian but, unfortunately for him, Naruto decided to take a defensive stance and remain unmoving on his side of the ring. Still, Kiba rushed closer until he was just a couple inches out of the range he needed to perform some of his 'awesome' combinations when lightning fast, a hand lashed out and caught him by the collar.

Naruto had waited for the child to come to him. Sparring with Kiyu went a long way to getting him used to the physical properties of his body. He knew that the range he had, compared to the other children, was ridiculous. So the second Kiba got within that special distance Naruto knew he had the advantage, Naruto made his move. Gaining a one handed grip on the Inuzuka's collar, Naruto used monstrous strength and lifted him off his feet while pulling forward and twisting his body.

Kiba was slammed into the ground with the force of a charging bull. Spittle flew out of his mouth as the air was knocked out of his lungs. As Kiba was getting his wits about him, Naruto straddled the boy and reared back with a double hammer fist. Frantically looking for an opportunity to escape, Kiba struck as hard as he could in Naruto's right side just below the ribs hoping a clean liver shot would get the boy off of him.

"Holy shit! That's not what that is supposed to feel like!"

That was the only thought Kiba could produce when his fist made contact with Naruto's side. He was expecting to have struck at a soft midsection just underneath the ribs. What he felt instead was unfamiliar tendons stretched tight as steel over…..cartilage?

*Boom*

Air rushed downwards, circling Kiba's head. The feral boy had closed his eyes in fear when his desperate shot had failed and refused to open them even after he didn't feel the impact of the blow.

"Winner is Naruto Uzumaki!"

Kiba opened his eyes to see the teacher holding Naruto's hands back with a shaky arm coated in chakra. Slowly, Naruto removed himself from the boy. As Kiba left the arena, still in shock from what had happened, he could hear the teacher scolding Naruto behind him quietly for attempting to use deadly force.

"Deadly force? That would have killed me?"

Kiba shivered.

"Note to self, don't fuck with the freak."

XXXXXXXXXXXXX

The rest of the day had passed relatively quickly for young Naruto. After a pretty good win streak in the ring, he ended up being forced to step down due to one too many warnings about excessive force and someone else was selected to fight. He was told that his behavior was going to be reported to the Hokage and that he would be required to stay after class and clean the classroom as a punishment.

Honestly, Naruto didn't mind being forced to stop sparring or even the punishment. The fights he had went a long way to clear up his mind and blow off some of the steam he didn't know he had and cleaning the classroom gave him both something to take his mind off the mixed emotions he had and a chance to be alone somewhere other than the bunker.

His other classes were pretty self explanatory. They evaluated the students on kunai throwing, stealth, basic knowledge on ninjutsu, taijutsu, and genjutsu, stealth capabilities, and finally, his last class had been a glorified physical exam.

Naruto thought to himself as he wiped down the chalkboard.

"Right now my classes are history, chakra theory, physical exercise, and the ninja foundations."

He wasn't sure why exactly history was something being taught but it did interest him. He needed to do research on people like Inoichi.

"Yamanaka….." Naruto whispered to himself.

He chuckled, remembering some of the very first things he had been taught today.

"The very first step towards victory, is knowing your enemy. The majority of what happens during a fight is decided by the information and tools a ninja has given himself days, weeks, and months before combat."

Naruto smirked. As he considered himself essentially behind enemy lines, he honestly didn't think there was a better source of information on his…..enemies…..than Konoha's own archives. He sighed deeply.

"I don't even know what's going on right now. I know that, at minimum, the Hokage has been employing one of his ninjas to screw around with my head. Is this linked to the voices I hear? Is it linked to the nightmares? Could this be related to the weird chakra I have?"

He laughed to himself. Could he even call it chakra at this point? All the studying that he and Kiyu had done mentioned nothing even remotely similar to what he had and today, when they were discussing chakra theory in class, nothing that was mentioned even remotely sounded similar to what the red chakra was.

Naruto went over the mental checklist in his head of the properties the red chakra had.

"It's painful. It makes me stronger than anything I've ever felt before, way stronger than normal chakra. I can't control it at all, it basically does what it wants to me and I have to ride it out. It disappears randomly and leaves me really tired. Finally, I think it's linked to really strong emotions."

He sighed. His life had become mystery after mystery. He had a lot of growing up to do, especially if he wanted the fast track to genin. His plan as it is, was to make genin by seven. That gave him one year of the academy to get everything down and to get himself as prepared as possible

Naruto took a step back and looked at the near spotless classroom and nodded to himself.

"Looks good. Time to get back to the bunker and train."

He turned around to leave the classroom to see the teacher looking at his progress with a critical eye.

"Leaving so soon Mr. Uzumaki?" Iwana asked in a challenging tone.

Naruto looked around in confusion. Had he forgotten something? He couldn't find anything that he had missed, so after a bit of looking around he nervously asked.

"Uhhhh…..I was planning to Mr. Akame. Is there something that I missed?"

Iwana's face was deadly serious.

"Naruto, I'm going to be blunt with you. What you did today was inexcusable. You nearly killed or crippled two clan heirs and you put a civilian boy in the hospital."

Naruto stared blankly at the teacher before he made his confused reply.

"Yeah? Wasn't that the whole point of this punishment? I went overboard and had to stay and clean. Am I missing something?"

Iwana recoiled in shock. He stared down at the child for what had to have been minutes of silence before he found the words he was looking for.

"Naruto, those children hadn't done anything to you. They're people, kids just like you. You actually would have killed Kiba if I hadn't stepped in and…..Kami…..Hinata would have broken both of her arms and probably some of her ribs trying to block that kick you threw if I hadn't stepped in."

Naruto stared blankly, waiting for the teacher to make his point, only to realize that he was done making his point. He was waiting for a response.

"Uhhh…..ok? Can I go home now? It's getting dark….."

Iwana looked at the large child for several moments, scanning Naruto's face for any hint of emotion other than genuine confusion before coming to the realization.

"He genuinely doesn't care. He would have killed Kiba without a second thought if I hadn't stepped in."

He suddenly felt very nauseous.

"My little brother was in the same class as this monster! It was just sheer dumb luck that it wasn't him that got sent to the hospital!"

Iwana straightened himself and looked down at Naruto with intensity.

"If I ever catch you attempting to seriously injure your teammates again, you won't have to worry about graduating anymore because I'll put you down. Do you understand me? I'll be reporting this to the Hokage. Now get out, the classroom is clean."

XXXXXXXXXXXXX

Naruto angrily walked back to his bunker. Confusion, anger, frustration all stirred like a whirlwind in his mind. Wasn't the entire point of the academy to produce soldiers? He understood that they weren't in war right now but what if they were a week from now? If he wasn't allowed to go all out then how was he going to improve? How was he going to catch up to Itachi?

He shook his head in an attempt to clear his thoughts but that's when he heard it.

*THUNK*

Someone was using his training ground. He quickly ducked down in the surrounding bush. The thought made him grimace. It made sense that someone else would use it again eventually. He and Kiyu had encountered a couple different groups that had used it in the past. Typically, the distance between any sort of store, restaurant, resupply stop, or hospital discouraged people from using this one.

"You may as well come out. You can't hide from my eyes."

Naruto went stiff. The unfamiliar voice called out across the training ground and seemed to be directed at him.

"What did he mean by his eyes?"

The only experience Naruto had with anything involving eyes was what little Kiyu had told him about the Sharingan. He slowly came out of the bushes to see an entire team of shinobi. There was a hyper looking boy in an awful looking, solid green jumpsuit, a girl that had a sword drawn and looked like she was in the middle of practicing different kenjutsu forms, and someone who looked like the Hinata girl he had fought earlier that day. Their jounin looked like an older version of the strange boy in an equally awful, just as green jumpsuit.

Once Naruto got done scanning them over, he decided to approach them amicably.

"Ah hello! I didn't mean to bother you. I honestly didn't expect anyone to be out here this late in the day."

The boy with pale eyes scowled and stepped forward with his arms crossed.

"You shouldn't be here at all. Civilians are forbidden from going near the training grounds."

The child in question snorted and thought to himself.

"So much for trying to be friendly. I like plan B better anyway"

Naruto squared his shoulders and moved closer to the older genin standing eye to eye before declaring.

"When I need the opinion of some weird ass ladyboy I'll go find a professional in the red light district. As for the legality of my presence here; I'm in the academy. This is where I train."

The Hyuuga boy stared slack-jawed in astonishment for several moments before processing fully what the strange boy had said. His face grew red and a vein grew pronounced on his forehead. However, much to the surprise of Naruto, he didn't make any rash moves. Instead he slowly turned towards his instructor and ground out.

"Sensei, could we perhaps give him a demonstration of the difference in strength between genin and fresh academy students?"

If their sensei picked up on the malice laced throughout his sentence he didn't show it. In fact, their bowl cut wearing sensei's eyes almost began sparkling in delight.

"My dear Neji…..I am so proud of your desire to spread your youth to the younger generation! COME! Let's give him a demonstration of the genius that is hard work!"

By the end of the strange energetic man's little speech, Naruto had to plug his ears due to the ever increasing volume he possessed.

"Holy shit, everyone in this damn village is insane!"

Before he could do so much as blink, he was standing in the middle of the training grounds face to face against the older kid now identified as Neji.

"Alright!"

The Jonin exclaimed.

"Now, because young Naruto here is in the academy, this is just a friendly spar. No jutsu or otherwise unfriendly conduct such as eye poking or hair pulling. We're all friends here!"

He then turned specifically to Naruto.

"Tell you what Naruto. I've got a special deal just for you. All you gotta do is land one blow on Neji, do that and I'll give you something that will change your shinobi world!"

Naruto furrowed his brow in confusion.

"I just gotta hit him once? Is the difference between an academy student and a genin really that much?"

Naruto sharply turned and looked at the odd Jonin instructor.

"Alright, what do I get when I pummel him into dreamland?"

The spandex clad man threw his head back and gave a boisterous laugh.

"You do that and I'll let you join in on our training sessions kiddo!"

The man's sentence was punctuated with a cheesy, full faced smile. His teeth glinted off the evening sunset's light.

"That's a Might Guy promise!"

Raising his hand to the sky, he beckoned towards the two combatants.

"Now…..both of you get ready! On your marks, get set…..Hajime!"

What happened next was the most confusing series of events he had ever experienced. Neji rushed forward with undeniable speed; Naruto had just blinked at the start and almost missed the entirety of his approach. Only, when the boy had blitzed into melee range instead of beating the crap out of him, he just started poking random areas of his body in rapid succession.

When the older boy was through poking like his life depended on it, he just turned around and scoffed.

"You should know when you're in the presence of your betters. It was your destiny to embarrass yourself today."

Naruto stood in utter bewilderment for only a moment. Was he showing off? Was this a joke? What was that supposed to do?

"He literally just turned his back to me. Everyone in this village…..they're all psychopaths….."

So without ceremony nor uttering a single word, Naruto took a short, boxers step forward and delivered a well practiced right cross to the back of the boy's head, knocking him out cold. He then turned to the rest of the boy's team to see them staring at him with faces frozen in utter bewilderment.

"So uhhh…..what was that about?"

The girl with the sword in her hand was the first to respond.

"What the hell was that?"

Naruto lifted his hands in a placating manner before responding.

"He turned around! What was I supposed to do?"

The bun haired girl stomped up to Naruto with murder in her eyes and gripped him by the collar before lightly shaking him.

"You were supposed to fall over limp after Neji closed your tenketsu!"

Naruto looked over to the green clad Jonin desperate for help or even just an explanation.

"Hey bowl cut, get her off of me! Or at least tell her I didn't do anything with her damn denkesu or whatever the hell she's on about!"

XXXXXXXXXXXXX

Some time later, Might Guy was unusually contemplative as he sat down with his team in a small restaurant for a late dinner.

"Why didn't Neji's Jyuuken work the way it should? I saw each of the blows land."

He looked at his team who, with the exception of his miniature, was looking dejected at their food as they ate.

"Neji, I wasn't mistaken today was I? Did you indeed close his tenketsu?"

Neji held his eating utensil tightly in his hand. Staring down intensely at his food, it was as if he could see the short spar playing across the surface of his plate.

"It's true that I didn't activate my Byakugan, but I wasn't actually trying anything technical. I just wanted to deflate his ego a bit. What I did should have paralyzed his arms and legs for a half hour at most. I know this because I've performed the attack dozens of times before without my Byakugan to guide me."

He pushed some food around on his plate for a few moments in thought.

"Thinking back now, his chakra system just felt...weird….."

Might Guy stiffened in the booth imperceptibly. He couldn't possibly feel the influence of the Kyuubi's chakra through just performing the Jyuuken could he?

"What do you mean it felt weird?

Neji considered the question before poking at a piece of grilled mushroom on his plate.

"Normally, when you strike a tenketsu with the Jyuuken, the chakra has a certain…..consistency. A chakra point is a place where several chakra pathways merge together in the body and when you push your chakra into it via the Jyuuken, it feels a lot like how this mushroom feels. Soft, with just the slightest bit of give before you punch through."

He moved his chopsticks over from the mushroom to a piece of grilled beef.

"His felt more like this beef. It felt sturdy, resistant, there wasn't the same feeling of 'punching through' that I normally feel when I successfully close a tenketsu. Of course, at the time I didn't think anything of it because…..well…..it's not like landing my Jyuuken hasn't worked before."

Suddenly, Neji stood up. He placed an amount of money on the table and bowed slightly before dismissing himself.

"I'm going to go home now. There are some things I need to ask my father. Thank you for the training today, sensei."

When he left, the bun haired girl all but melted onto the table and groaned.

"Tenten! Are you alright?"

Might Guy spoke with slight alarm. She just tilted her head off to the side and gave another short groan.

"I can't believe the first person to beat Neji was some weird ass blond academy kid….."