WHO WON THE SUPER BOWL? MY PHILLY BOYS WON THE SUPER BOWL. You know, something I've only been waiting my entire life for. I was a kid when they went last time, and this still feels surreal. Nick Foles, Philly legend, confirmed for G.O.A.T. That's all. And before anybody gets uppity about the Ertz TD catch: naw, he caught it. Ground can't force a fumble. While we're at it? Lions should have won against the Falcons & Steelers should've beat the Patriots in their games with the same sorta catches officiated poorly. This is the last time you'll hear me talk about football until September, probably.

Let's get this trainwreck moving.


Naruto wasn't certain exactly why things had gotten to this point, but he did understand how. The passage of time was an unending struggle against the power of mankind, and it was something humanity could never win. So here he stood, fifteen years old, with words he'd known were coming to his ears.

"You fail." Iruka said. "Sorry, Naruto...maybe next year."

"What? No!" Naruto acted out his unwritten script. "Give me another chance, Iruka-sensei! It's been an off day for me, I can do it if you give me another chance!"

"I can vouch for that, Iruka." Mizuki said, looking at his co-instructor. "It doesn't make sense. Naruto's historically done well in class and practicals. Why not just let him through anyway?"

The fake smile he sent the silver-haired Chunin's way would hopefully sell his performance.

"We need ninja who can perform regardless of whether or not they're having a good or bad day. In the classroom, we've always offered tutoring and re-tests for people who needed them...but the real world isn't that kind. You can have all the skills in the world, but so do the people on the other side of the continent, and they won't hesitate to kill you if they find out you can't fight back." Iruka said, steel in his voice. "Sometimes, they get you anyway."

Mizuki and Iruka both looked down at the ground, away from Naruto and one another; clearly, there was a history that Naruto wasn't in on. Still, he knew his part in the scheme, and he exited the room. The rest of the day passed in as nondescript a fashion as it possibly could have, as Naruto quietly counted down the minutes until Mizuki ran out of time to take the bait he'd been offered. If he really was a traitor, and this four-year gamble hadn't actually been for nothing, then he would be approached.

At the end of class, as the rest of the children filed out with Iruka, Mizuki stayed behind. He sat, looking up at Naruto from his desk in the room's center, as the blond stared off into space.

"You gonna be okay?" Mizuki asked. "That was...he shouldn't have said that to you. He wants to protect you, even though you're older than we were when we graduated and became Genin. Still...there's something he didn't tell you."

Naruto's eyes flicked in Mizuki's direction, and the teacher grinned.

"There's another way to graduate. Pull this off, and you'll prove you have the skills to be a ninja." He said, and Naruto's eyebrow came up.

There it was again, the same smell of wet peanut butter that came across his nose when Mizuki was lying. The bait had been laid, Mizuki had gone for it...and now it was time to spring the trap.

"Give me the test." Naruto said. "I'll get it done."


The mission Mizuki had given, under ordinary circumstances, would have been somewhere between, "next to impossible," and, "a worthy challenge," if not for the fact that the Hokage was in on it. Steal the scroll that contained a written record of Konoha's Kinjutsu? Leave the village with it? Learn a technique, then report back to Mizuki?

It was such a painfully obvious trap that Naruto couldn't help laughing.

"He said he'd meet me a little outside of the northern gate." Naruto said, his serious tone failing to hide his humor. "At nine tonight."

He'd been given a dummy scroll. When the Hokage hadn't been looking, turning to walk away, Naruto had swapped the two; the only things in his possession that were faster than his mouth were his hands. Whether the wizened ninja knew or not, or perhaps if he approved of the idea of seizing power by any means necessary, he gave no indication.

With that, he was gone, racing through the air and across rooftops as his heart thundered in his ears. As he made one last flying leap, launching over the wall that had kept Konoha safe for nearly eighty years, he couldn't help but laugh at the feeling of freedom it gave him. Sufficiently clear of the village, and deep in the woods of Hi no Kuni, the Kinjutsu scroll was unrolled with a mix of veneration and excitement. At the top of the list was the Tajuu Kage Bunshin, and Naruto remembered years ago when he'd had that fateful conversation with the Hokage. He'd mentioned other types of clones, ones that weren't illusions, who could be utilized in battle. This would let him summon a thousand of them? At once?

Oh, there was no question what he was learning. And right under that, a host of other techniques that had been recorded since the village's history. Naruto was far from religious, but on some level, he couldn't help understanding that he'd been given a gift straight from the heavens. Though he liked to believe in his tenacity and work ethic, he couldn't stop the passage of time, and before he knew it, the time for him to go meet up with Mizuki. He stood, beginning to walk towards the northern gate, and he swore that he saw movement out of the corner of his eye.

No flash of metal in the dying sunlight, which meant it was either an animal, or someone walking in an opposite direction. Still, he hadn't gotten a good enough look at whatever it was, and that made him a little nervous...but he had to keep going. Walking past limitless trees as he curved around Konoha's perimeter, he lost count of how many times he almost saw something disturbing the tranquil twilight. Soon enough, after the sun had finished going down and full-blown night had set in, he'd gotten used to it and ignored it. If they were going to attack him, he resolved, then they would have done it while he was defenseless and inattentive.

"Mizuki-sensei!" He yelled, finally coming up on the silver-haired Chunin's position.

"You're late." Mizuki said dismissively. "It's five after."

"Yeah, well, it took a little longer to get here than I thought. I practiced for a while." Naruto replied.

"And that's the real Kinjutsu scroll?" Mizuki asked.

"And I learned a technique or two from it...maybe more."

Naruto's breathing was a little ragged, his ribcage swelling with just enough exaggeration to show he was tired. Even then, before anything else could happen, something hit him in the back.

Pain. Naruto could feel the blood leaking down from underneath his shoulder blade, and he twisted his left arm around to rip out...

"An arrow? Mizuki...don't tell me you were planning to betray me? Even after I did what you asked?"

"I've got a confession to make, kid." Mizuki said. "I've been working for a man Konoha hates, for years. He's taken a pretty special interest in you, and the fact that you actually managed to get the Kinjutsu scroll, too? Sorry, but you're gonna have to come with us."

A two-headed ninja, and an Akimichi-sized one, both strode out of the darkness to stand behind Mizuki. Another arrow came from the left, though Naruto dodged it. Off of his right side, he heard a flute begin to play. A dome of earth came up around Naruto, and he heard the directive given straight from Mizuki's lips:

"Drain his chakra just enough for him to pass out. We can't have him dying on us, Jirobo. He's probably going to become Kimimaro's replacement."

"Kimimaro's not dead yet." One of the onlookers said.

"Quiet, Sakon. He's strapped to an examination table. That's no way to live."

"Mizuki, did you forget?" Naruto asked. He felt something rising up inside of his blood, a primal urge that he couldn't deny.

"Forget what, Naruto?"

"We had a deal. You broke it...and I'm pretty mad about that."

It had been a little over five and a half years since the day Mizuki had made that promise, and the off-colored "IX" had branded his palm. Now, as that mark burned with pain, Mizuki looked down to see blood beginning to leak out from his hand. First in a thin stream, then in a surging wave, drops of blood came down to the ground like a waterfall from his hand.

"What? What's happening? What are you doing?" Mizuki said, panicked.

"You broke your end of the deal." A voice that could only belong to Naruto, but that was distorted beyond recognition, announced. "You gave an oath, and failed to keep it. This is my retribution."

As that sentence ended, all the blood left Mizuki's body, and he crumpled where he stood. Drained of life, he watched in his final moments as Jirobo's earthen dome was shattered. Dying, he felt no fear as he watched a monster come forward.

"Haha..." He laughed. "Always did believe in you, Naruto. I'll...be...watching you. Give 'em hell."

With those final words, Mizuki's body erupted into ashes, and thin wisps of yellow light streamed towards Naruto before they were absorbed.

"Let me make you a bargain: I'll give you one chance to walk away." Naruto said, his bloodshot eyes now complete with vertical slits. "In exchange, you will not fight me, now or ever."

The girl far to his right bolted off, and a red tether of power sprung forward from Naruto's right index finger before it attached to the strip of flesh between her shoulders and beneath her neck. The archer to his left followed after her, and this time it was his left index finger that released its power to brand. It struck the boy on his upper right arm; as the last remaining ninja fled with their comrades, Naruto's middle fingers let out their power; the two-headed man was branded on his torso, and the one who'd summoned an earthen dome was struck on the left ankle.

It wasn't shock at Mizuki's death that had made the Sound Four abandon their mission. It was fear. They'd heard stories, of course, about ninja with the power to single-handedly rip their ways across battlefields. They'd known that they were coming to capture the son of the Yondaime Hokage, who'd sacrificed his life in a Pyrrhic victory to kill the dreaded Kyuubi. Even four-on-one, their hearts had been filled with dread so great that it had overridden everything they knew. If you had asked Sakon, Jirobo, Kidomaru, and Tayuya whether they would rather face punishment for failing a mission, or Naruto's wrath...the answer was in the fact that they were running from him. Orochimaru was a harsh lord to serve under, but he was a firm believer in the idea that a mission wasn't always worth completing if the alternative meant staying alive.

Usually. He'd also been known to kill ninja who'd come back able-bodied after failing their missions, because he disapproved of cowardice on every possible level.

"Well, that happened." Naruto said, looking down at his hands before his eyes turned to the drying pool of blood that proved Mizuki had existed. It startled him.

While more than one of the orphans he'd fought in his attempts to become the king of the street rats had met an untimely demise, this was his first time killing on the orders of another person. Blood dripped from beneath the nails of the fingers that had branded the Sound Four, and a look of deep contemplation weighed on his face; he watched Mizuki's blood soak into the earth, remembering how the silver-haired Chunin had been the one to offer encouragement and aid. It was thanks to him, after all, that Naruto knew who his family was. While the man had brought it on himself, quite literally, Naruto had still killed someone he'd viewed as a friend.

He'd wanted to believe that the Hokage was wrong, but his hopes had been crushed with Mizuki's open admittance of betrayal. His train of thought solidified: the only people he could trust were himself and his urchin brethren. None of them, Ayame or any of the rest, would ever turn their backs on the young man who'd earned the title of Banchou. There was a deep comfort in that knowledge, at least.

The forest was quiet, allowing Naruto his space to think. Soon enough, though, the time for thoughts was over; understanding that the fact that he saw the Anbu meant that they wanted to be seen, Naruto shrugged and turned to walk back inside the village. Contemplating the murder of his teacher and onetime friend, Naruto didn't feel the exhilarating joy in his movements back towards the tower of the Hokage. His body felt heavy, weighed down with purpose, as he opened the doors to the old man's office.

"Mission accomplished."

"Congratulations. Report to the academy tomorrow morning for your assignment to a team. And, before I forget: your hitai-ate."

Sarutobi Hiruzen held out his hand, producing the forehead protector from a containment scroll. Naruto took it gingerly, pulling the cloth ends around either side of his head and tying them into a knot that remained comfortable while staying secure. Just like that, he was officially a ninja of Konoha.

Just like that, he was given the understanding that his death had been put into someone else's hands.

"Thank you, sir. Will that be all?"

"No one is allowed to know what happened tonight, Naruto. This is a B-rank secret, between you and I. Do you understand?" It was a secret they shared with the Anbu that had watched Mizuki die.

A B-ranked secret was the lowest level the Hokage could authorize for sensitive information. It could be revealed and discussed five years after the events in question had passed, or files could be published if all involved parties were dead before that time had expired. A-rank secrets were subject to a ten-year period of silence, unless the situation prompting secrecy became irrelevant. S-rank secrets were to remain as such, under pain of death or exile.

At least the Hokage took his position seriously.


"Starting tomorrow, I'm officially a ninja." Naruto said. "I won't have the time to keep up with everything that goes on around here...but that doesn't mean you're allowed to start slacking!"

The crowd laughed at that; Naruto looked across the room, at the group of children he'd grown up with on the streets of the slums. He'd trained them all, as a group, to the level of academy graduates. While that didn't account for much on a scale of power, they were loyal to Naruto alone. That meant something.

"Technically, all of you are listed as civilians...if you're listed at all. Now that we're growing up, you need to find trades. Skills. What you want to do is up to you, but never stop training. Never stop working. And once I figure out what I want to do with my life?"

"Game, set, match!" One of the teens in the back of the room piped up. "Whatever you're gonna do, Naruto, you're gonna be the best. We believe in you!"

Cheers met that proclamation.

"Make us proud, boss!" Another said.

"You're gonna be Hokage in no time!" A third shouted.

"Na-ru-to! Na-ru-to! Ho-ka-ge! Ho-ka-ge!" They began to chant.

This was not what Naruto had envisioned when he'd called all of them together. It wasn't a bad thing, to know that others had confidence in him, but he tried to keep his ego from becoming too inflated.

"That's enough of that." He said, raising and lowering his hands to quiet them down. "Even if I do become Hokage, my greatest achievement will still be gathering all of you together. Seeing all of us together, growing up, growing strong...that's all I ever needed."

He smiled, because it was the truth. As long as he had them, and as long as they had faith in him, there was nothing he couldn't accomplish.

"Okay, but when do we start celebrating? You graduated from the academy, you're a ninja! I feel like that at least deserves some recognition!" Ayame said indignantly, hands on her hips as she leaned forward in mock irritation. "Gods, I went to all the trouble of cooking enough to feed everyone, and you haven't so much as mentioned-"

"Food?" Naruto asked. "Why did nobody tell me there was food involved? You're all traitors! He said, his hands sweeping out in a gesture towards the room's inhabitants.

"I promise, Banchou, we'd have said something! After it was all gone!" One girl said.

Naruto sighed. You could take the orphan out of the street, but you couldn't take the street out of the orphan. There was no such thing as "too much food." He knew that. It couldn't surprise him that the food had been kept a secret; his stomach was the biggest of all, and he never quite felt satisfied. Even after years of living in a home with a stocked kitchen, and a girl who'd been trained to cook before her father's untimely demise, he'd never truly felt full.

Plates and napkins, and an obscene number of dishes, were carried out into the room. With the food set down on the ground, the former urchins gathered around one another and talked well into the night. Naruto left them to their own devices after an hour or so, leaving to stand outside of his home with the moon shining down upon him. The events prior had left him with too many more questions than answers.

What happened? Something had come over him, a burst of power that was strong enough to shatter his enemy's technique from inside his own body. It had ripped through the Genjutsu cast to keep him immobilized, and healed him from the wounds he'd suffered at the archer's hands. The deal Mizuki had made with him...had killed him when he broke it? There had to be some kind of kekkei genkai involved. Probably on his mother's side, given that very little knowledge of the Uzumaki remained in the world after their village had been sacked.

He would find the answers to those questions. No matter who they made him out to be, no matter what he became in the pursuit of his own understanding...he was himself. That was all that mattered.

The silence of the night around him only seemed to agree with that notion.