Warning list
COPYRIGHT
In Soviet Russia, you own Naruto. Here and now, Naruto owns you.
MANGA-BASED
This is based more around the manga structure than the anime.
MULTI-CHAPTER
Basically, it'll go through the whole series (til 3 year mark) but with that Foxy twist.
JUTSU/TECHS
I'll use a bit of Japanese here and there for more character definition; ie Sakura-chan. Don't expect a 'Hai' in favour of a 'Yes' though.
SPELLING
Spelling discrepencies. Example: realise/realize, colour/color, etc. Though I appreciate my errors being pointed out.

Foreword:
I'll be frank. This is an introduction chapter. It's okay to skim this.

Fox Identity
by Arkhe

Chapter One: A feeling you can't put your finger on.

It was a bright, new day. The sun's rays had glazed the rooftops and bathed it in a golden hue. Trees rustled as a few soft breezes weeved between the forests and buildings. Birds fluttered, animals skittered and the village's many inhabitants started filling the streets.

Today was the beginnings of a new promise in Konoha; the Hidden Village of the Leaf.

Though...

A blond boy, clad in a glaringly blue and orange ensemble, stood on the Village Monument. Poised and ready, his gaze stretched over the whole city presented before him. Withdrawing a notepad and a pencil, he quickly jotted down some numbers and then a quick sketch of the view before pocketing them in exchange for a paintbrush.

This day, he'd make History.

"Do you know who these people are?"

"Well, yeah... They're the Hokages..."

"And you came ALL THE WAY UP HERE, just to DEFACE them?-!"

"Well, they all look so serious..."

"IDIOT!"

WHAP!

Naruto hung his head low and rubbed at the sore spot at being hit. Turning away and grumbling, he afforded himself a smirk whilst his face was out of view from his teacher. Instinctively, he felt a pocket and was satisfied at feeling the bulge of the notepad from before.

Iruka (completely unaware of his student's hidden agenda) had his heart strings pulled by Naruto's crest-fallen look. The act of vandalism had triggered memories of his own lonely and wreckless youth. Acting on a whim, he had decided to treat Naruto to ramen to push down the encroaching depression, to which Naruto accepted whole-heartedley.

The chuunin teacher looked on, amusement was written on his face as he nodded every so often at his present company's one-way conversation. Once in a while, he would also consume another portion of his ordered ramen before it got any colder.

His company on the other hand, was multi-tasking to a heavy depth. Eating the third bowl of ramen and raving about ridiculous stories to his teacher aside, Naruto's mind was very much elsewhere. Currently, it was going over the Taijutsu he was learning at school and chaotically comparing it to a handful of other styles he had witnessed (whether first hand or by text book), as each cluttered thought he'd imagined, jumped to different and unfocused tangents.

Now, how his body and mind could act so independently, could be attributed to years ago when he had just learned that secret of Konoha.

The one that which no one should speak of.
The reason of being the bane of everyone's existence, subjugated to humiliation and isolation, time and time again.

He was the Nine-tails.

The 'whiskers' birthmarks, those red slitted eyes and a dead sealed Fox aside, Naruto still wasn't secure with the solidity of this development and pursued much research and self theological debate until he felt he had an explanation with the combination of all the facts he could find.

'When he had been the demon, he had underestimated the strength of the Hidden Village of Leaf and thus the Fourth Hokage had somehow mustered an enormous effort to seal him away.

Possibly outright ridiculous, if the very history of the various ninja wars before the peace pacts weren't considered.All shinobi nations would fight for control and it would be no surprise should any (if not all) villages strive to attain such incredible powers at their disposal. Oddly enough, all of the greatest of demons had disappeared one after another during the wars, so it shouldn't be surprising if there were people strong enough to seal them. In Naruto's own surmised words; No more demons around and the Leaf managed to catch one. Who's to say these things aren't catchable?

Adding the apparent legend of the Fourth's unsurpassed strength (and oddly missing name) to this day, the idea of sealing away the body of the Fox, but giving the soul human form, isn't so ridiculous in retrospect.

Then from there, assuming the Third won't dispose of him in his most vulnerable stage, he would rationalise this demon-child's potential as a weapon of the village and would instill into him the need to defend the village.'

...What a joke of an already lowly existence.

Vowing revenge for such an outrage, Naruto began focusing on training his stamina so that someday, he would have an unrivalled chakra well to allow his vengeance fruition. After all, quite the amount of chakra is needed to decimate an entire village of ninjas.

However, because of his 'unique' background, Naruto had to undergo a dramatic change to not draw suspicion.At first, it begun on drawing on annoyance, now that he had no reason to try being civil. He'd slowly come to associate class-clowns to be a sort of social-outcasts. With the combination of pranks and his already growing annoying attitude, he slowly and painfully engineered the facade of a cheerful, energetic, loud-mouthed idiot from pure observation of such influence alone. In time, this behaviour had easily become routine; requiring little thought whatsoever on his part. In this state, his mind would be free to mull over things and analyse to such a degree that he could create 'lucky' or 'unlucky' instances on a clumsy whim.

Thus leads this thought back to present-day Naruto, who was now theorising of how to create a solid replication, though he was vocally expressing how he'd someday make an awesome technique that would beat the snot out of anyone in an instant, make 2 minute ramen in 1 minute and fetch him his slippers.

Iruka had finished eating just several minutes ago, though Naruto had somehow beaten him hands down, with seven bowls as compared to his one.

With an eighth bowl disappearing rapidly, the panicking teacher intercepted his student from having another bowl to which would add yet another dent into his own wallet.

"Okay Naruto, that's enough."

"Awwww... Iruka-sensei!"

Watching his teacher pay for the meals, Naruto couldn't help but wonder why Iruka felt obligated to do so. A while back, his stamina training had required more food where his meek allowance fell short. It wasn't long before his growing appetite turned his meals into rationing and it showed during some classes at the academy. This was what first led Iruka to 'befriend' him, to which Naruto quickly acted to milk the situation. He was surprised when the Chuunin educator continually offered to treat him on such expensive outings! The acts had been a saving grace to allow steady progress of his stamina, so despite being unable to comprehend his teacher's obligation, but not wanting to push his luck, Naruto kept it up and let his teacher think whatever he wanted to think.

Iruka, on the other hand, had been boggled about where all that food went. That thought was really a distraction from the severe sum he found himself paying for both meals and the meals prior, but really, who's counting?

Not dwelling on their respective subjects, both teacher and student bid each other farewell and went their separate ways.

Upon arriving at his humble abode, the sole Uzumaki had decided to finish the task he started earlier that day. Removing what looked to be shoddy repairs on his couch, actually turned out to be a mangled-looking box containing folders and scrolls.

He'd idly leafed through a few, "Yamanaka... Aburame... Inuzuka..." Naruto would tick off in his mind, before seemingly at random, procurring a folder and bringing it to the table, whilst withdrawing the notepad from the morning. Flicking through various entries, he finally came across the latest; a brief overhead sketch of the main Hyuuga compound and the number of windows he had seen.

Opening the folder held several pages of information -pertaining to various notable names of Hyuuga Main House and Branch House members (or in the cases of some, a facial summary where a name wasn't present), as well as a small scroll outlining several moves of their training style. The combination of all information present, now allowed Naruto a hypothesis for an architectural blue print of the compound -which will prove undoubtedly invaluable much later down the path.

See, the meagre beginnings of the plannings had started as an unconscious reaction as to when Naruto began playing pranks and seeing people other than himself suffer. It was after failure after failure of prank after prank did Naruto begin a mental composition of how to set up the pranks with the focus to escape without being caught. Soon, his thoughts were put to paper and the details required grew with each new and extravagent trap. Eventually, he'd felt he needed to expand his mapping to more important places, as he felt he might have to deal with said people eventually.

Back to the present, though in the midst of copying the information, Naruto had paused, idly offering a silent prayer, that this new research wouldn't prove useless... Like that time when he had finished compiling the whole Uchiha district and then that one guy decided that it was a good day to kill everyone...

Well, though it did make his revenge that little bit easier, it would take the fun out of shoving off a respected household.

The following day had been struck with inspiration. Naruto had just been called to the front of the class to demonstrate Henge no Jutsu -a transformation technique he had first pawned off as ridiculous when he learned it last year. In his spare time, he had furthered the theory by creating an alternate technique to actually physically alter his appearance, instead of its mere illusion base. But on its completion, he berated himself for forgetting what would happen should anyone find out he was capable of a real transformation instead of creating an illusion of one.

But if he should somehow degenerate it to a point where everyone would overlook it...

Standing infront of the class, a certain blond fox's eyes narrowed in mischief. Oh yes, just his luck that his new technique will make its debut today...

"Sexy no Jutsu!"

The Genin test had come around later that day for the Fox-boy and time had slowly rounded to his turn. In an effort to test his teacher's keen sense of observation, he focused on creating an odd bunshin. This clone looked just like a dummy in Naruto's clothing and had effectively fallen to the floor like one would without a proper way to keep it standing.

He had been successfully failed.

As Naruto stepped out, he slapped his forehead at just how dense his teachers could be. Clearly he has a good measure of control to create an illusion to even look like AND act like that. A real failure would create a clone that would be semi-transparent, the features wouldn't be as accurately synonymous to a real dummy and it wouldn't act like a real dummy would. For crying out loud! The dummy had a crusting, painted smile on its less-than polished, wooden face!

Oh well, he resigned and started in the direction of his back-up plan...

"Naruto..."

...until he had been stopped by Mizuki; a teacher's aid to Iruka and the second judge of his test performance. The man then offered a proposition for an 'alternative' way to become genin -to which Naruto unthinkingly accepted with great enthusiasm.

After parting, Mizuki watched the boy turn a corner and was gone. Making his way down an alley to his own home, the traitorous ninja finally was able to laugh out loud at seeing how easy it was to trick the demon-boy into doing his dirty work! He'd be long gone before the Anbu would get on his trail and the little bastard would get what he deserves!

Just down a few streets, Naruto was barely holding down his bubbling excitement. He had been planning to sneak a peek at the team rosters and a 'breeze' might just mix up student names. When the lucky best of the best team of two were set, he would show up at Iruka's doorstep tonight and correctly perform Bunshin. But finally putting his fighting skills to the test and learning some forbidden techniques... He couldn't have planned it better!

With a skip in his step, a certain teacher thought he had pulled the wool over the village's eyes, whilst a certain Fox-boy grinned at knowing he had actually pulled the wool over everyone's eyes.

It was mutually decided that life would be good this night.

Stopping at the meeting place for the traitor, Naruto laughed at having his new technique proved priceless at attaining the scroll from the Hokage himself! He would have gloated on it further but time being as short as it was, he retrieved a small bag hidden beneath the roots of a nearby tree. Removing a cheap camera from within, Naruto began taking photo after photo of the various writings of the scroll, briefly skimming the contents as he did so. The various polaroids had twisted in mid-flight, landing ungracefully at his feet.

Indeed, the Scroll lived up to its name; the 'Scroll of Seals' , though he had been initially disappointed. All the seals didn't have set instructions to perform them, but instead, were vague in the linear notes of the theories of how they are possible -even the ones that are in constant use now. Which probably meant that the scroll was intentionally indistinct should it be stolen.

Groaning at the additional effort, Naruto continued at his task letting the information sink ankle-deep in his head. Finally he came across a few of the more useful sort; a person-summoning/calling/teleport technique would be useful and that seal posing as a Dojutsu; an Eye Technique was rather interesting. Boasting an ability to project fear into a person, paralysing them, Naruto vowed to learn this aptly named 'Killing Intent' technique soon. The ability to summon Shinigami; the God of Death himself was also enticing, though Naruto had been put-off by having to exchange his life in this transaction.

Then there was that one Ninjitsu. He rolled his eyes at the absurdity of having a ninja technique, in a scroll meant only for Seals. Funny enough, the technique was considered forbidden, even at the Jounin level! The excited Foxboy read the Kage Bunshin no Jutsu with growing amusement... Yes, it would do him a world of good to learn this 'Shadow Replication' (-he mused that the only person you can count on, is yourself). There was even the possibility to master it this very night! Taking the reins back, he let his control return to the task at hand.

Excitement rushing in his veins, Naruto moved on to the last Seals and began reading the description...
And his blood ran cold.

For in his very hands, lay the foundation of how he had come to be.

The 'Four Seasons Seal'.

He drank in the sight. It was now entirely probable that he could reattain his original body!

Snapping out of his reveree, he took the last of the photos, put them into the bag, replacing it into its hiding spot and immediatley threw himself into learning the Shadow Clone.

Had Naruto been more observant, he would probably have been more intrigued at the prospect of the last Seal...

The one with little to no information about the shape of a Spiral.

His breathing was haggard.
His feet refused to budge.
His hands clutched onto the scroll tightly.
His body wasn't responding, but it was completely healthy.

Naruto's mind was another matter altogether.

For years now, Naruto's 'idiot facade' easily had an auto-pilot switch. However, on quite alot of occasions, his body would pull out some emotions, to which his mind would quickly supress. Without a mentor to question as to what these things could mean, Naruto resorted to various forms of media to map them out. It wasn't long before he would find that these feelings were dangerous without dire self-control.

Right of this moment, a feeling welt up inside of Naruto. It was a feeling he was unfamiliar with, but it didn't stop him from condemning it as one that wasn't welcomed.

Just behind the tree Naruto leaned on, Iruka, all bloodied and strained for breath, had defended his student again from Mizuki.

"He's not... not a monster." Iruka gasped. "He's just like me..."

The feeling had grown stronger now. The attempt to supress it again had failed miserably and the tears came.

If Iruka hadn't shown up, Naruto would've beat Mizuki to an inch of his life and turned him in, citing a battle of luck on his side. But Iruka's appearance had changed things, having Naruto play his usual ignorant part. Despite the revelation (though second-hand to Naruto, it was the confirmation he needed), Iruka still came to Naruto's defense and had taken a hit meant for the boy. With a tearful expression, Iruka finally explained why he was drawn to the Fox-boy; they're in the same predicament. They're both alone. Both struggling without family to lead them. Both doing stupid things just so they could get attention. Any kind. Just as long as it pushed away at the hungering loneliness.

It was at this point that Naruto felt an emotion he had successfully dodged until now. Unable to quell it, he panicked and ran. Mizuki gave chase but Iruka again interfered.

"I know he's an excellent student. He's hard working and always gives his best. But because he's so clumsy... No one respects him. He knows knows what's it like to hurt inside..."

Choking Iruka from the inside, it was his wish to improve his life all those years ago and now, when he found the blond boy in the same predicament he himself was in, it tore at him to give that boy the chance he deserved; a chance Iruka had wanted his whole life. Nothing short of complete belief in his own words, the Chuunin lecturer was more than willing to sacrifice his life for that of his student.

"He's not a demon anymore... He's Uzumaki Naruo!"

Mizuki now understood that Iruka was an obstacle and concluded that his once comrade's life would now be forfeit. But Naruto would have none of that.

"If you lay a hand on Iruka-sensei... I'll kill you!"

"Congratulations Naruto..."

Iruka smiled warmly to which Naruto tried to discern the foreign object tied to his forehead before it hit him. He had earned, not just a Genin headband, but HIS teacher's headband! If he had been thinking clearly, he would recoil at the thought of wearing the symbol of his adversaries, but for some reason, the thought had instilled other feelings that made him quite giddy. He let the pleasant sensation fan out and logical thought sat aside to bask in it.

It was a feeling that made him smile.

Iruka would always look back on this moment with great fondness. There was something about that smile that he couldn't explain. Unknown to him, it wasn't one of Naruto's fox grins, but the boy's first genuine smile he had given his whole life.

"Oi, Naruto. What're you doing here? This class is only for graduates." Shikamaru asked.

"Hehehe!" Naruto pointed out his headband. "I know!"

Shikamaru blinked, surprised at the turn of events. However, finding it troublesome to go any further, he took the path with less effort and casually let the topic drop, walking off to return to his seat.

Naruto continued to grin, prideful on the reflections of the night before. But when it came to that emotion he couldn't name... He mentally shuddered at the thought of losing to it. The feeling had ran rampant and it severely handicapped his judgement.

A few minutes of mulling it over (and an incident involving another male student that only his idiot-mode could have gotten into), Naruto had finally let the musing to rest. He had altogether disregarded the thoughts, determined to not let it happen again. After all, he just showed he learned a forbidden technique, not to mention how he used it so effectively infront of his teacher. No doubt it would raise suspicions, but should he continue to play his part, no one would still be none the wiser.

Focusing back on the present, Naruto finally picked up on the inkling of doubt that pawed at the back of his mind. It continuously insisted that he had forgotten something and it was really starting to irk him...

It was at this moment Iruka entered carrying the necessary papers for the team rosters.

Oh... That.

Looking over his new teammates seating themselves on the rooftop of the academy, had Naruto really hate how unearthly powers stuck him with the worst possible team. Yes, he acknowledged that they were the highest scoring in the class, but still! He had heavily disliked the fact that his team consisted of a head-in-the-clouds Kunoichi without a bloodlimit and an egotistical ass with a COPYING bloodlimit (he admitted that wouldn't have been a bad thing if they trained together, but come on! -Any headway Naruto'd make would be undoubtedley stolen!). If only he had either the Hyuuga or Yamanaka girls, he could have picked up more on their arts... But no, he was stuck with the ordinary girl and the unoriginal boy. The unknowledgable duo.

Pathetic.

Kakashi, however, had been a surprise. Though the teacher had failed all his teams before, Naruto knew of Kakashi's preceding reputation of being a master of a thousand techniques. Rationally, a thousand would be unlikely, but knowing techniques outside of the Fire element would most definitely prove to be useful. But the likelyhood of him teaching these techniques...?

Feh.

With everyone seated, their teacher had been first to break the silence.

"Okay, why don't you guys introduce yourselves? Go with name, likes, dislikes, hobbies and dreams for the future, that sort of thing."

"Your our teacher, shouldn't you start?" Sakura interjected.

Kakashi regarded it coolly and accepted.

"Well, my name is Hatake Kakashi. My likes and dislikes are none of your business. I have alot of hobbies. As for my dreams, well..." And his mumbles just trailed off from there.

"So all we learned was his name...?" Sakura whispered incredulously. Naruto and Sasuke couldn't help but agree.

"Let's start with you then, pink-haired girl."

Sakura blanched but recovered quickly.

"My name is Haruno Sakura. My likes and dreams are..." Her eyes trailed to the dark-haired boy beside her and she giggled. Kakashi rolled his visible eye.

"I dislike... Naruto." She said grimly, whilst Naruto acted accordingly. "And for my goal, I'll be a great Kunoichi someday!" With the love of my life, though she ommited the last part from being said out loud.

"Okay..." His team was looking pretty bad at this point, but Kakashi gave them the benefit of the doubt.

"And to the brooding guy." He pointed at Sasuke.

Sasuke bristled but started. "I am Uchiha Sasuke. I have few likes and dislikes and fewer hobbies. As for dreams..." He tilted his head down. "It's not really a dream. But an ambition." His eyes glazed.

"To kill a certain man."

Silence sat heavily, each person to their own thoughts. Kakashi reasoned that this team needed a major fixer-upper but still had a slim chance of passing.

"And you, the blond kid." Their new teacher finally deigned to move things on.

Naruto jumped excited. "Hey, I'm Uzumaki Naruto! I like lotsa things especially Ramen! My favourite is Miso Ramen, but I also like Prawn and Pork and Beef..." He counted off on his fingers. Everyone rolled their eyes. "And I absolutely hate how long it takes for the Ramen to cook!"

Kakashi silently swore never to pass this team. They would need nothing short of a minor deity to get underway.

"And my dream..." Naruto paused, eyeing a specific structure in his line of sight. With a well-placed sudden jump, the genin landed lightly on the railing facing the Hokage monument.

"My dream..." He repeated a little wistful.

When he was younger and had just learned of his background concerning the Demon Fox, Naruto had set out to try to find out as much information as he could concerning his non-mortal heritage. What had surprised him was the information concerning both Gods and Demons. It did not have to be said that Gods were righteous and would bestow upon those who believed in them, but the information that had interested him were about the Gods who wreaked havok. How different were they to demons? Apparently very.
Putting it into contrast with himself, he had wondered if perhaps now that he did not have a demon's body nor the allusions that came with it, he'd be able to gain something denied to his demonic half...

"You don't have to be so dramatic about it, idiot!" Sakura's shouting had stirred Naruto out of his thoughts. "We already know you want to be Hokage!"

Naruto briefly cast a look her way and turned his attention to the monument.

"Yeah... Hokage." He murmured.

He had briefly imagined the village burning to the ground and the Hokage monument silently watching with their chiseled solemn faces, unable to right the unfathomable chaos. Godhood would let you get away with alot of things and Hokage would probably be as close as a mortal ninja can get. It would just be a matter of time and research until it was feasable...

But they didn't need to know those details.

End Chapter One.

Feedback, constructive criticism and flames welcomed.
I'll take it like I'll take candy from a baby!

Author's notes:
I have to admit; this is a terribly structured chapter. Luckily, I've managed to fix it from MUCH worse and revised it 6 times now. Though not completely satisfied, I am satisfied with it enough though. Anyone like to comment here?

I'm confident the liberties I've taken (different dialogue, events shuffle) are appropriate. Hopefully, I've also made some sense of Naruto's progression, although I will outline it more as we go along. After all, we never knew all of his capabilities from the start.

About pairings... My idea would probably send the lot of you away and it started sounding cliche to me, so I'll stick with friendship and loyalties. Less messy.

One more thing... About the 'Sexy no jutsu', I've only seen either translations as that or the 'Seduction technique'. Is it 'Oroike no jutsu' in japanese? I can't find it in my dictionary.

Once again, feedback of all kinds are appreciated!

FAQ Section
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A section for less common questions. (removed July 13th '05)

Special thanks to the following people:
kageryuunohakke
naarrrruto
Kazanoe
Arnoldstrife
Licht Sieger
Kitsurumenokitsune
The Gandhara
granite69
Ookami no Anubis
G-Man
RockFox
BWFox
Aura Bakura
Wendys Triple Classic WITH CHE

Thank you all for letting me know to keep going!

Stats
'Classic WITH CHE word counter'
Current Vers. 01.9 (4/5/06)
01.7 (13/7/05)
Fic: 4,249
Notes: 348

(Does not include stats)

Have a Great and Happy day!