About a month from the end of the school year, he was practicing in his clearing as Tsunami, when he suddenly felt something was wrong before he blacked out.
When he awoke he found himself strapped to a chair. He could not feel his chakra! A dour-looking scar-faced man with a Leaf Badge on a bandana that covered the top of his head was starting at him.
"Who are you?" Scar Face asked.
"Uzumaki Tsunami," he said.
"I'll admit that you look like an Uzumaki, but we don't have any true Uzumaki in our village anymore," Scar Face said. "What are you doing here? We don't take kindly to unknown persons practicing ninja skills in hidden areas of our village."
"I can explain to the Hokage," Naruto said.
"Why should Hokage-sama come talk to you? Anything you could say to him, you can say to me."
He thought for a minute. He did not know anything about Scar Face. He could not even be sure he was still in Konoha. He did not have any code words set up with the Old Man. He decided to take a chance on a reference to his heritage.
"Tell him it's about Kushina and her husband."
"Uzumaki Kushina never married," Scar Face said.
"It was a secret marriage," Naruto said.
"Very well," Scar Face said, "but if you're wasting my time, it will go worse for you."
Several hours later the Hokage entered the room, frowning. He stared at Naruto for a few moments. Scar Face stood behind him.
"Hokage-sama, I suggest that you send anyone you don't want to know about Kushina's husband out of the room," Naruto said. It felt weird to call the Old Man by his title, but he didn't think his surrogate grandfather would appreciate Naruto's brand of informality coming from an unknown prisoner.
"Everyone leave," the Hokage commanded. Scar Face left and the Old Man shut the door. He placed a privacy seal and activated it. Naruto could not draw one yet, but he recognized it.
"How do you know what less than ten living people know?" the Hokage demanded.
"I found out about my parents," Naruto said.
"Stop the lies," the Hokage snarled. "Kushina never had a daughter." Naruto was unnerved to see this side of the Hokage. He decided to come clean. "How about you tell me who you think her husband was?"
"Her husband's name was Minato and I'm not their daughter," he said. "Tsunami is an alias. I'm really Naruto."
"They did a full examination of you while you were unconscious, girl, and a Disguise won't work without access to your chakra or while unconscious. Try again."
"I have an unusual Disguise Technique, because of my tenant," Naruto said. "It allows me to do actual transformation with no chakra maintenance. My mom could do the same thing."
"Kushina never said anything about that," the Hokage said.
"She told me she rarely saw the need to use it," Naruto said.
"How do you explain talking to a woman who died the day you claim you were born?" the Hokage asked.
"I'll explain it to you after I prove who I am and we go someplace more comfortable, Hokage-sama," Naruto said.
"Naruto never calls me Hokage-sama," he said.
"I don't feel comfortable calling you Jiichan when I'm chained to the chair," Naruto said.
"How do you propose to prove yourself," the Hokage asked.
"Give me access to my chakra and I'll show you my seal," Naruto said.
The Hokage thought for a couple of minutes. "I'm embarrassed to say that I don't know anything about Naruto that couldn't be found out by two days' worth of observation. I'll remove the chakra suppression seal, but if you try anything you'll definitely wish you hadn't."
He nodded. "I understand. You'll also need to lift my shirt. This would be easiest if I could make a ram seal, but I'll understand if you don't want to free my hands."
The Hokage removed a seal tag from his back and then lifted his shirt with one hand. "Go ahead and flare your chakra gently."
Naruto summoned a small amount of chakra. He could not see his stomach, but he saw the Hokage's eyes bug out briefly.
"Can you release the Disguise?" the Hokage asked.
"I can," Naruto answered, "but I need to make hand seals to reapply it. I'd rather not have anyone know that Tsunami and I are the same person."
"That type of Disguise is too useful to let out to anyone at this point," the Hokage admitted. "I wish Kushina had told me she could do it."
"Probably didn't want to be stuck on nothing but infiltration missions," Naruto said.
The Hokage thought for a moment. "That's probably it. She didn't have the personality for them." He glanced at Naruto. "I dare say that you don't either."
"No way, Jiichan," he said. "I have a little bit more patience than I let on, but not that much."
"I'll get the key to your bonds and then come back," the Hokage said. The Hokage replaced the chakra suppression tag and then left
About ten minutes later, the Hokage returned. Naruto wondered if most of the time was spent arguing with Scar Face. The Hokage again removed the chakra suppression tag.
"Turn into Naruto," the Hokage said. "If you can do it and then keep it with your chakra suppressed, I'll let you go."
"Okay," Naruto said. He released the Disguise.
"Amazing," the Hokage said. He placed the chakra suppression tag on Naruto and left it there for a minute before removing it. "One last thing: tell me how you know what you know."
Naruto sighed. "My mom talked my dad into sealing her into me since she was dying. She appeared in my mindscape when I was five. I've been talking to her every night since."
"How do you know it's not the Kyuubi trying to trick you?" the Hokage asked.
"I wouldn't think the Kyuubi is capable of faking motherly love without trying to poison me against Konoha for five years unless it's really misunderstood," Naruto said. "Mom did give me something to say to you to prove it was her if you ever found out."
"Go on," he said.
"She said to mention the six bowls of Ichiraku ramen she extorted from you for not telling Biwako about the orange-covered books hidden in your desk."
He chuckled, embarrassed. "Okay, I'm pretty sure it's her, although we can't rule out the Kyuubi knowing about that since it was imprisoned in your mother."
He unchained Naruto. "Okay, change back to your girl Disguise," the Hokage said.
Naruto formed the Ram seal and changed into his Tsunami Disguise.
"You can do Disguise with only one hand seal?" he asked. "Your version does use the standard hand seals, right?"
Naruto nodded. "I practiced a bunch. I heard that the Second Hokage could do it, and thought it would be cool."
The Hokage nodded. "Lots of jounin and even chuunin do that with D and E-rank techniques they use frequently. In fact, it's strongly encouraged for a jounin to be able to do a Replacement Technique without using any hand seals at all. What was extraordinary about the Second was that he did it with B and A-rank techniques." The Hokage paused. "Your reports from the Academy say that you're very poor in everything. Why is that?"
Naruto snorted. "The teacher hates me. He marks me lower in everything and then docks my overall score for 'misbehaving' even when I don't."
The Old Man looked stricken. "Naruto! Why didn't you tell me? I would have fired the idiot and gotten someone better!"
Naruto rolled his eyes. "You and the Ichirakus are the only ones that don't hate me. I doubt switching teachers would help. Plus, it gave me an excuse to prank him."
"That's not true, Naruto," the Hokage said. "It's mostly the ignorant civilians that hate you—the shinobi know better."
Naruto shrugged. "I've never met anyone else who, at the least, didn't ignore me like I wasn't worth their time. And my teacher is a shinobi."
"I'll make sure you're in a good class next year," the Hokage said, "and fire the moron immediately. Come to my office and let me know what your mother has been teaching you."
Naruto explained his skills to the Hokage. Other than the Shadow Clone Technique and his basic sealing skills, he did not really know more than the average student.
The Hokage kept his word and fired his teacher. They had substitutes for the last few months of classes. The subs were better than the old teacher, but most of them still mistreated him. He thought it was mostly because of the notes the old teacher wrote on how poor his skills were and his "behavior problems" rather than his "furry problem." He simply pranked them, which probably did not help his reputation, but he was past caring.
He spent a lot of time thinking about how to solve the problem. He knew that giving up pranking would help, but he just could not let a slight to him go unpunished. What he needed was to start over.
"You want to what!?" the Hokage exclaimed.
"You heard me, Jiichan," Naruto said. "I want to attend the Academy as Tsunami as well as Naruto."
"Why would you want to do that?" the Old Man asked.
"I want to start over," he said. "These last few weeks have been a bit better, but my reputation is weighing me down. Everyone thinks I'm the Dead Last, while actually I'm the second best in my class. Even if I get a teacher that doesn't see me as the Fox, they'll still see me as the idiot. One of the last guys to teach my class accused me of cheating because my scores were 'too good' compared to my historical scores."
"I don't think this is the right answer, Naruto," the Old Man said. "There's still two years left. It will get better."
"Alright, Jiichan," Naruto said, "let's make it a wager. If at the end of the year Naruto has a standing within five places of Tsunami, Tsunami will disappear. If not, I get to keep her."
"Naruto. . ."
"I'm tired of it, Jiichan," Naruto said with a sigh. "All I really want is to be accepted. I can only take so much of the harsh looks and the turned backs. The times I went out as Tsunami to go shopping were quite refreshing."
"Naruto, I sympathize, I really do, but part of your cover is the fact that nobody realizes you're a true Uzumaki. If a redheaded sister shows up, they'll make the connection to Kushina and if they start looking for which of Kushina's friends was blond. . ."
"Really, Jiichan?" he said. "My mom says I act just like her. If that doesn't clue people in, then having a redhead sister won't."
"Fine," the Hokage said with a sigh. "If you can convince your mother and you can do seal-less and smoke-less Replacement and Disguise Techniques by a week before the next school year starts, I'll let you do it. I trust you not to lie about your mother's approval."
"Naruto," his mom said worriedly. "I don't think this idea of yours is healthy."
"Didn't you say that most high-level shinobi have quirks?" he countered.
"Yes, but most of them don't pick them up in the Academy."
"I just want a chance to not have the Fox hanging over me, like you did, Mom," he said.
"Fine," she said, "I'll agree to the same conditions as the Hokage. You need to be able to do seal-less and smoke-less Replacements with a Shadow Clone and a smoke-less and seal-less Disguises by the deadline and if Naruto is within five spots of Tsunami or is higher, the experiment ends."
"Can I raise my clone quota to 10?" he begged.
"Fine," she said with a sigh. "Let me show you how to do Replacement."
The end of the Academy year was coming up. He had planned to take the final test this year in order to try and graduate early, but decided to try his wager with the Old Man instead.
He had four weeks to get the technique requirements down. After he spent a few hours to get the Replacement down with its standard five hand seals, he started with Disguise, since he was almost there. He could already do it smoke-less with only one hand seal. Practicing in all his free time with his 10 clones, he managed to get it down seal-less and smoke-less in two days.
He started on perfecting the Replacement. Luckily, Replacement with a Shadow Clone was much easier than any other Replacement. Within a day he had it smokeless with five hand seals due to his good chakra control. Within less than two weeks he had it down to one hand seal and smoke-less. He spent almost a week and a half getting rid of the last hand seal. He had made it with two days to spare!
He rushed over to the Hokage's office and then waited "patiently" for him to be free. He was practically bouncing off the walls.
"Hey, Jiichan," he exclaimed as he entered the office.
The Hokage activated the privacy seal. "I take it from your demeanor that you have met my requirements?"
"Yep, Jiichan," he said excitedly. "With two whole days to spare!"
The Old Man sighed. "I'll make the arrangements. Let me tell you the rules. You have to switch off which is the real you and which is the Shadow Clone. You can't hide as Tsunami all the time. You need to switch every school day. The only exception is in taijutsu spars, the real you has to participate in each spar. This is why I made the requirement for seal-less and smoke-less Replacements."
"What if we have a spar at the same time or if we have to spar with each other?" Naruto asked.
"I'll make you a note saying you're allowed to watch each other spar, telling the teachers not to schedule them at the same time. For the other, we typically don't have the boys and girls spar."
"I've noticed that, Jiichan," Naruto said, "but isn't that kind of counterproductive? I mean enemy shinobi aren't going to accommodate that kind of arrangement."
The Old Man sighed. "Yes, it is. It's one of the accommodations towards the civilian children that have crept in. I haven't had time to fix it yet, so I've been leaving it to the jounin senseis to fix, for now."
"Can we get a place to stay other than the orphanage, Jiichan?" asked Naruto. "That's one of the things I would like to escape."
"Why?" the Hokage asked. "Do they treat you poorly?"
"They aren't physically or verbally abusive, if that's what you're asking," Naruto said. "They just continually ignore me unless it's a requirement to interact with me. If I'm going to be lonely, I'd rather actually be by myself rather than in a group."
"What about food?" the Hokage asked.
"I rarely am there for food anymore," Naruto said. "I usually make my own arrangements for food."
The Hokage sighed. "Very well. I'll set up one of Jiraiya's apartments for the 'two' of you."
"My missing godfather, eh?" Naruto said.
"Don't judge Jiraiya too harshly, Naruto-kun," the Hokage stated. "I asked him to stay away until you became an official shinobi in order to not draw attention to the fact that you look an awful lot like your father."
Naruto frowned. "Okay, Jiichan. Thanks for humoring me in my experiment."