"Naruto-kun?" A voice at the door called just in time for me to put aside the sausages I'd fried up.

"It's open, jiji!" I called over my shoulder, putting the pan down. I picked up the plates loaded with fried potatoes, sausages, and eggs to put them down on the table. It had been two weeks since I found myself in this insane world of ninja, perverts, and just plain weird people but some things never changed. Things like breakfast. I smirked as I turned around in time to see the Hokage walk into the apartment with wide eyes.

"N-Naruto-kun!? You can cook?" The old man looked like I had smacked him with a trout as he stared wide-eyed at the twin plates of food steaming on the table.

"Yep! Sit down, I figured you'd be over so I made you breakfast too!" The old man smiled as he pulled out a chair across from me, taking the chopsticks while I used a fork.

"Thank you, Naruto-kun. Itadakimasu!" The Hokage said as he picked up a sausage. His eyes widened almost as far as mine did when the old man seemed to inhale the food. I learned to cook a bit in my old life and the Third, by the way he inhaled the food, enjoyed every bite. "Kami, Naruto-kun! If you decided to open a breakfast shop, you would be the richest man in the village! Teuchi-san wouldn't even be able to compete!"

"Heh, thanks jiji." I rubbed the back of my head. "Maybe I'll call it Waffle House."

"You, my boy, are going to be the end of me."

"At least your Shinobi career." I smirked as the old man looked at me curiously. "You're not an Akimichi, Hokage-sama, it wouldn't do to have the Hokage rolling around the battlefield would it?" The Hokage laughed heartily as I dug into my food. I may not have eaten as fast as the Hokage but I did have somewhere to be today.

"Are you ready, Naruto-kun?" The Hokage asked as I finished washing the pans and plates, setting them in the drying rack to be put up when I returned.

"Yeah, jiji. Let's go!" I grinned, trying my best to imitate Naruto at least a little bit. To be honest, I couldn't give less of a shit about joining the Academy. Apparently, Kyubi knew enough about Kanji that I didn't actually have to learn it and could write Kanji like it was English… It wasn't pretty, but my handwriting was never perfect anyway.

"Excellent, Naruto-kun, excellent. We still have a good amount of time before we need to be at the Academy."

"I'd rather be early, jiji." I grinned as the old man nodded.

"Then we'll get you there early, Naruto-kun." The Third smiled as I closed the door behind us and threw the lock.

"Alright!" I grinned up at him (still pissed that I had to look up at most people) as we meandered down the staircase and onto the early morning streets of Konoha. Already, people were milling to and fro on their way to work, on their way from work, and shinobi prowling around for God only knew what reasons… Though the Genin complaining about being on D-ranks was pretty funny if you knew what you were looking for. The fact that the village put its little ninjas to work by doing chores would have definitely been a violation of child labor laws back home but these were ninja, if you lived to see forty you were generally considered lucky.

We made good time to the Academy, considering Naruto's apartment wasn't far from it in the first place. The fact that the crowds split like the red sea before Moses in the face of the village's Hokage and Jinchuriki? That just made the trip all the faster.

"This is where I leave you, Naruto-kun." The Hokage said, his hand on my shoulder as we stood in front of the Academy's front gate. "You're to be in Umino Iruka's class. He's a good man and one of my finest Chunin. I am afraid I will not be here to retrieve you this afternoon nor will I be able to escort you here tomorrow morning."

"You're the Hokage, jiji." I shrugged as I looked up at the man. "I'm not even one of your Genin yet. The village comes first." The Third Hokage smiled as he patted me on the head.

"You are wise beyond your years, Naruto-kun. I will see you again soon."

"See ya, Jiji." I grinned, walking through the gate as the old man watched me go. I don't know how to explain it, but one second, I felt the old man's eyes on the back of my neck, and the next that feeling was gone. 'The body flicker is incredibly useful, isn't it?'

"Not as useful as the Hiraishin." The Kyubi rumbled, and I couldn't help but agree.

'Shame you don't know it.'

"The Fourth figured it out before he married your mother, Uzumaki. I was unable to see how he perfected the process. I believe he left his notes on the process in his house though."

'And that would be where?'

"Something for later." The Kyubi rumbled. I shook my head as I walked through the courtyard to join the throngs of kids with their parents - the other obvious first-timers. I could have rolled my eyes, though. Here these kids were joining the ninja academy while holding mommy and daddy's hands…

'Those'll be the dropouts,' I thought uncharitably, 'or the ones that'll fail the second Genin test.'

"A Hyuuga? Stuck up like Neji, I bet." I froze in my tracks as I heard that. I turned to see two idiots against one little girl with black hair dark enough to reflect blue in the light. The girl was small, tiny even, and the two idiots towered over her as her back pressed up against a rather large tree. I ground my teeth together as I changed direction… Damn it, and here I was hoping to go under the radar.

"Hah! She probably is, Akira! All Hyuugas are stuck up. You should apologize for that!"

"Yeah! Yeah she should!" The left imbecile jeered, the two idiots feeding off the other's stupidity.

"And why should she?" I drawled. The two whirled around as Hyuuga Hinata's eerily pale eyes met mine. I smiled and waved at the girl before the smile died on my lips as I glared at the Kira kid. "Well?"

"Humph, you're that kid that always gets into trouble, aren't you?"

"The kid no one likes!"

"I wouldn't know." I shrugged. "Someone decided they didn't like their Kunai sheath and made my head its new one. Once the Hokage plucked it out of my head I healed up in a few minutes… My memories? Not so much." The two looked queasy now but turned beet red when I cracked my knuckles. "Now, I don't know who you two idiots are but even an amnesiac like me knows that you don't mess with a Hyuuga."

"An-and why's that?" The left idiot stuttered out.

"They're a clan." I lifted an eyebrow and rolled my eyes at the idiots before I turned to the girl. "Hinata, right?" The girl nodded as I held my hand out. "C'mon, let's go join the others. I think the stupid's starting to spread." I looked at the two and crinkled my nose. They both sucked in a breath to screech something but with a smooth, quick, easy motion, I brought two fingers crashing against both of their Adam's apples. Whatever they were going to say died on their lips as they fell to the ground clutching their throats, coughing and spluttering all the while. I offered my hand back to the girl, who took it without hesitation and clung to my arm as we rejoined the group of kids waiting to get into the academy.

A kid with red marks on his cheeks saw the pair of us and opened his mouth to say something (probably obvious and stupid to point out) but was interrupted as a pair of flack jacket-clad men threw the doors open and strolled into the courtyard.

"Welcome to the Ninja academy!" The man with his dark hair done up in a ponytail and a vicious scar crossing his nose called out. "For all returning students, please make your way to your classrooms. They have not changed. First years! I am Umino Iruka, Chunin of Konohagakure. I will be your primary instructor. This is my assistant, Tanaka Mizuki." The Chunin waved to his fellow (durag-wearing, silver-haired) teacher, who had his arms crossed over his chest. "He is also a Chunin. You have enrolled in this academy to become Shinobi of the Leaf. Parents, I must ask you to leave." Iruka said, and the parents - after hem-hawing for a few more minutes with their kids - finally dispersed. Though Hinata still held onto my arm for dear life while Mizuki glared at me like I was Satan himself.

Seriously, what was up with these people?

"First years, please follow me!" Mizuki called out, his eyes finally pulling away from mine as the parents dispersed. The ragtag group of thirty trailed behind the silver-haired man as I took up the rear with the Hyuuga that clung to me like a Koala. We made our way into the school and into a tiered classroom with a blackboard at the front. Funnily, half the kids could barely see over the desks. I wanted to chuckle but was interrupted from doing that as Hinata decided we were going to sit at the back of the classroom and she was going to hold onto me for dear life the entire time.

Honestly, I wasn't a life preserver, teddy bear, or plushy, but the limpet just wouldn't let go!

"Hyuuga-san? Would you please release Uzumaki-san?" Iruka called, smirking as he watched Hinata's pale face turn scarlet, but she did let go of my arm. Reluctantly. "Good morning! Settle down, settle down." The Chunin said, waving his hand as he picked up a scroll from his lectern. "Is Aoki Karin here?" Iruka asked as he scanned the room. I sighed and settled my chin on my hands. 'These are going to be a long few years…'


Oh, how right I was. Too many hours of books, glares, annoyances, and a Hyuuga leech later, I was finally free of the academy.

If I had to go back, it would be too soon.

Yamanaka and Haruno, demons that they were, made the day that much worse. The constant screeching over Mr. "I have a stick in my ass in the shape of Itachi," was so far beyond grating that it reached the point of soul-crushing…

Not that Mr. "I don't even have the Sharingan yet but you can all kiss my ass," made it any better… Okay, so the kid wasn't that bad considering he lost his entire fucking family like six months ago. He should have been in an insane asylum or a nice, quiet villa by a beach so he could relax and get away from the world.

Nope.

Apparently, rest and relaxation didn't exist in this crazy-ass world.

To the Shinobi, the best way to apparently get over something was to immerse yourself in so much that you didn't have time to linger on the people you lost…

Not a very healthy way to deal with grief but, hey, to each their own.

Unfortunately, that didn't seem to apply to Sasuke.

The poor boy had to live in an apartment in the Uchiha district of town. Hell, it was within walking distance of his old family home. You know? Where his brother cut down his entire family wholesale before trapping him in a nightmare of some pretty serious shit before running away?

So yeah, I could forgive Sasuke for being a broody, edgy emo right now. But there was no way in Hell I was going to let the kid go all "it is my ambition to kill one man," or however he put it on me here in a few years.

Now, instead of just trying to get around with the Hyuuga Koala for the entire day, I found myself camped out around Sasuke. I didn't talk to the kid, I figured I'd let him make the first move while acting as a shield from the bloody fangirls.

Honestly, if the kid didn't thank me for that, at least, then he was a lost cause… Not that he even twitched when I sat down beside him after lunch.

Thankfully the Taijutsu basics were at least interesting - even if Mizuki was damned and determined that I wouldn't learn it though.

Bully for him.

I knew a few stances that certainly wouldn't suit the stupid fast punches and kicks of the Academy Style taekwondo they were teaching us, but they were perfect for wrestling. Honestly, little Naruto packed one hell of a wallop already, especially when the Kyubi decided he wanted to get involved. Right now, I only knew the barest of the bare minimum of Chakra use, but the Kyubi had been doing this for a thousand years. Changing his face was child's play, and he taught me.

How else was I supposed to buy actual clothes that weren't neon orange and groceries without getting reamed out the ass for them?

Anyway, I knew the Henge no Jutsu thanks to the Kyubi. The Kitsune, ever the prankster, thought it would be a great idea to reinforce my muscles with Chakra when I was 'sparring,' against Mizuki for the first time. Needless to say, he wasn't expecting to punch 'the Demon brat,' in the face and break his own wrist in the process. What? Did you think I actually could do something against a fully trained ninja? Nope. No way. Not a chance in Hell. Not yet. But I'd get there.

You see, the Kyubi knew a thing or two about a thing or two when it comes to Chakra while I knew all of jack-shit. But when it comes to other things like, oh, I don't know… Metalworking? That's where I knew a thing or two about a thing or two while he knew jack-shit.

The biggest problem Konoha seemed to have (to me, a blade enthusiast and lifelong hammer swinger) was that there was only one weapons maker in the whole city. I'd met the crazy little bastard too. His name was Io and he seemed to be the only weapon maker in the entire city that actually wanted to push the envelope, the only one who wanted to make more things than the damned Kunai that were everywhere in the village. Seriously, did Konoha have to have like thirty blacksmiths solely dedicated to making the damned things? And then there were another twenty pumping out shuriken! It was ridiculous!

So if Io pushed the envelope and the rest made Kunai, Shuriken, and Senbon, where were the weapons masters getting their swords?

Right now, I had the sneaking suspicion that the clans had their own blacksmiths while the rest of the village got by with what they could salvage from enemy shinobi on missions. Or maybe it was what they could find in the shops. I've heard that traders sometimes brought in some interesting tools or weapons from across the elemental countries, but I hadn't found anything worth using from them.

On the other hand, I've found tons of abandoned Kunai, Shuriken, and Senbon lying around the various training fields of the city. Most were just standard-issue Kunai but others stood out by sometimes having a different color wrap on the handle; rare others had kanji etched directly into the blades. The special ones I left well enough alone. Ninja were weird fuckers, so if they looked special in any way then they probably had a good reason to be there. That was a good enough reason for me not to touch them. For all I knew, there were some odd Jounin out there who liked to rig the battlefield so they could maneuver to a weapon no matter where they were.

Strategically it was brilliant - unless someone like me came along and took the weapons off the battlefield. Then the Jounin would be shit out of luck. That means that Jounin would be pissed. I don't even want to piss off the Chunin yet, there was no way in hell I'd even touch a Jounin's Kunai unless I knew damn well I could defend myself from them.

Or hide from them. Either way was good.

The rest of the ninja tools were fair game.

A little bit of oil, a set of whetstones, and a few minutes of grinding with Kyubi enhanced strength later, and I would have perfectly good weapons ready to use… And I had hundreds of them at this point. Shinobi seriously had no idea of how to reuse their projectiles.

Or maybe they did, and it was the Genin that was the problem. I guess when mommy and daddy are still paying for everything, they think they can get away with it.

Ah, Genin, the punching bags of the village.

Though I'm not sure if that would fly with Kakashi…

Eh, who was I kidding, half of the specially marked Kunai probably belonged to the bloody cyclops. After all, no matter how hard he hit or how many jutsu Sharingan no Kakashi stole, he would always be a tracking specialist.

Where was I going with all that?

Oh! Right, metalworking!

Well, I certainly didn't need hundreds on hundreds of kunai, shuriken, and senbon, but you know who did?

The idiots who kept throwing them away.

Yep, right now, I was making about three hundred ryo per Kunai. Considering I could sell twenty to thirty of the things per day, I was making the monthly stipend that the Hokage oh so graciously provided in two days of sitting at a stall by Ichiraku's.

Good food and cheap weapons? That would attract Shinobi faster than a low-ranked missing-nin with a good bounty. Hell, old Teuchi agreed to let me use the space beside his ramen bar just for the profits and the increased traffic the promise of half-priced Kunai would attract.

And boy did it.

I sold twenty-five Kunai a day on average, but I only kept about a hundred in the shop in reserve. The rest were in my apartment in a special storage seal in my apartment where I had nearly a thousand refurbished Kunai - I brought that scroll to the shop with me every day.

Now that I was in the Academy, though, I was stuck selling Kunai by Ichiraku's for a few hours in the evenings before the sun went down (except on weekends).

Of course, I couldn't use my actual face because of the whole demon stigma and everything. Thankfully I had a giant chakra monster inside me who could and did teach me how to use the henge no jutsu.

But it was a bitch to learn.

"Thank you, sir!" I grinned as the Shinobi in front of me shook his head and took the five Kunai on the counter. "Use them well!"

"Will do, kid. I ain't got a clue why ain't anybody else thought of this already." The Chunin sighed as he shelled out the fifteen hundred ryo he owed me.

"I'm not sure, sir." I shrugged, my newly colored brown hair hanging over a long face and grey eyes. Yes, I stole the typical Stark (Game of Thrones, not Iron Man) looks. They were horribly plain but terribly forgettable. Not a lot of people would remember my face, and the only ones who knew it was me under the henge were the Hokage (because I told him what I planned to do) and Teuchi (because we were practically business partners now). "But it's great business for me. I'm not sure why more people don't just pick up their Kunai, though."

"Some Jounin leave them laying out." The Chunin shrugged uncaringly.

"I figured that much out." I rolled my eyes. "I leave those alone."

"Smart." A lazy drawl carried over from the Ramen bar as a man with silver hair, a Chunin flak jacket, black pants, sandals, a mask, and a forehead protector cocked to the side as an eyepatch said. I felt my throat tighten as none other than Sharingan no Kakashi, the last Hatake, looked over the Kunai I had on display. The cyclops picked up one of the kunai and spun it on his finger. "You clean these up pretty well, kid. Most people throw them out because they'd be better saws than knives."

"Thank you, Jounin-sama. Would you like to buy something? If not Kunai, I have senbon and shuriken as well." I asked cautiously as the Chunin laid the ryo he owed me on the counter and bolted away, leaving me alone with the cyclops.

"No, Uzumaki-san, I would not." Hatake said, his eye turning into an upside-down U. I felt my heart clench as the Jounin gave his signature eye smile and turned away, giving the peace sign over his shoulder as he went.

"There went your anonymity, boy." The fox rumbled straight into my head.

'No? Really? I never would have known.' I groaned as I watched the Jounin disappear into the crowd. "Yo, Teuchi!" I called through the wall.

"Yes, Naruto-kun?" The old chef's voice wavered as it pierced the wall.

"I'm going to pack it in for the night. I'll eat at home."

"I will see you tomorrow then, Naruto-kun. Goodnight!"

"Night, jiji." I grinned, thumping the wall with my fist before I pulled the top of my new little merchant's stand to close up my shop. The best thing about this place? I was able to take all the Kunai, however many shuriken and senbon, and the small amount of cash I made home with me in a backpack. Anywhere else, this would be me practically begging to get robbed, but in a Shinobi village? Petty theft was practically unheard of.

Notice how I didn't say crime in general. The Homicide rate was stupendously high for such a small village, and grand theft was common, but some kid carrying maybe a couple of thousand ryo on his back with a few Kunai? No. I wasn't a good mark. Hell, a fast D-rank mission made more than what I was carrying on me.

Of course, I had to get my happy ass to the bank before the sun went down to deposit my money. Sure I kept a bit out for food and emergencies, but Naruto never thought to deposit money. He kept all of his under a loose floorboard in the bathroom. Honestly, if I hadn't opened an account, I would have had a couple million (yes, million) ryo just sitting in my apartment. Thank you, Naruto, for holding onto practically every single ryo that the Hokage gave you for God knows how long.

The only problem? Every bank in the blasted city would one: throw Uzumaki Naruto out on his ear or two: try and price gouge any kid younger than Genin because they're obviously too stupid to do that.

Well, all the banks except one.

The Shinobi bank of Konohagakure.

It was slightly different than the Bank of Konoha by virtue that this bank was run by Shinobi for Shinobi instead of Civilians for Konoha's population. You either had to be a Shinobi or enrolled at the Academy to open an account with the Shinobi bank. And just like every bank in the city, the name Uzumaki Naruto was sure to get me thrown out like a beachball.

Except for the one open-minded, blue-eyed, purple-haired teller who heard my name, smiled, and told me: "Even an idiot should be able to tell the Scroll and Kunai apart. Let's get you an account open, Uzumaki-san."

Now, the only teller I would go to in my 'Sato Minato,' form (as I called the fake Stark persona) was the purple-haired Kunoichi that always met me with a grin.

So, two minutes and a quick deposit later, I was out of the bank while running as fast as I could. My boots thumped against the pavement as I jumped onto a fire escape, climbing to the rooftops and dropping the henge. My entire outfit changed in a second as I felt fire race down my legs. 'Thanks, Kyubi!' I laughed as I practically flew over the roofs of Konoha back to my little apartment.

I made it in less than five minutes, landing on the roof of my apartment complex, and turned to the Hokage monument as the sun fell over the city.

"The city is beautiful, isn't it?" I whispered.

"For a Shinobi village," The kitsune grunted, slightly annoyed but not angry like I expected.

"And it's got nothing on some of the sights back home."

"Hm… Yes. This Grand Canyon of yours was quite the sight. I could make another in the land of wind."

"Hah! I may just take you up on that one day, Kyubi." I laughed but had the distinct impression the Kyubi was giggling hysterically… Or maybe that was manically? Actually, I didn't really want to know. All I knew was that tomorrow was going to be another rough day in the Academy.

XXX

AN: Hey guys, sorry for the late update. Things have been a bit crazy on my end with family issues and with me finishing up my degree. I'll likely have less time to write with real life really starting up soon for me, but I'll continue to post for as long as I am able. Thanks for your support and I'll see you next time.