Chapter One

"You fail!"

Naruto shuffled away from the academy building, his dreams just becoming further and further away. Pondering back on what had happened, Naruto walked over to the swing and sat down.

Flashback warning

"Naruto Uzumaki!" Iruka, a dark haired chunin with a scar across his nose, called over the chatter of the class. An orange clad boy with ocean blue eyes and whisker marks stood up. He shouted "I'm gonna be hokage, believe it!" and with that he ran down the steps to the desk. "Alright Naruto could you please do the substitution, transformation and clone jutsus?" Iruka asked. Next to him stood Mizuki, a grey haired teacher, an ever present smirk adorning his face.

Naruto held back a groan, the famed clone jutsu was his worst jutsu out of his current repertoire. The other two he could do perfectly, an impressed Iruka and a pissed Sasuke later… Naruto determandly put his hands together to form the ram sign and with a shout of "Clone Jutsu!" a burst of chakra left some smoke, obscuring the view. Slowly the smoke drifted away…

Iruka sweatdropped at the sight before him, a clone of Naruto was slumped on the floor, colorless and basically dead. It poofed away with Naruto rubbing his head sheepishly. Iruka, thinking this was a prank, got annoyed. "You fail!" he shouted.

Flashback end

"Clone jutsu…. Damn it." Naruto muttered, while slowly moving the swing back and forth. The clone jutsu seemed to be out of his reach. It wasn't for lack of trying either. Every day after school, if he wasn't pranking people, he would train his hardest to be able to create one perfect clone.

"Hey Naruto," said boy glanced up. Mizuki was standing above him, hands in his pockets, with his usual smirk. "I just had a talk with Iruka, and he said I could give you a second chance."

"Second chance?" Naruto raised an eyebrow.

"Yes all you have to do is steal the forbidden scroll and learn a jutsu from it." Mizuki schemingly told him. "Meet up with me on training ground one tonight. Your time starts now."

Naruto waited till late at night before walking out of the academy grounds and rushing to the other side of the village. Naruto channeled as much chakra as he could and he then sent it in a one way line straight for the gates. Sneaking past all the shinobi, Naruto made his way to the large hokage building. He used his years of experience of escaping from the ANBU to sneak past the guards and into the hokage's office.

"Naruto?" he whipped his head round so fast that he nearly got whiplash. Naruto saw the third hokage in all his glory with cat covered night clothes and a serious expression. His night cap tilted to the right. Naruto did the first thing that came to his mind.

"Sexy no jutsu!"

A blond haired busty teenage girl popped into view with smoke covering her privates.

The hokage dropped to the floor with blood flowing out his nose, his cap landed on his face. Naruto reverted back to his normal clothes and was about to search the office before thinking. He grabbed a camera. Haha blackmail.

Naruto proceeded to search the office for the scroll. The office was not big, but it was not on the small side either. Underneath the desk was a large safe that had an ordinary lock on it. Naruto used his nonexistent lockpicking skills and amshed open the door of the safe. Inside were two small scrolls and one large scroll, the large scroll had the kanji, forbidden, on its seal. He grabbed the scroll, but looked back at the other two, picking them he looked over them. Both had his name upon it. Grabbing them he jumped out the window. Naruto became a darting shadow as he roof hopped across the village.

He then hid in the least expected place of all… the academy. Naruto dashed into one of the empty rooms and layed out the scroll. "Hmm Edo Tensei… might record this jutsu. Wait what about this one, Shadow Clone jutsu?" Naruto shrugged his shoulders. May as well.

The hand signs were ram, serpent and tiger. The problem was that Naruto had been tricked into thinking that a hand sign that was illegitimate was the tiger hand sign.

Quickly flipping through the hand signs he shouted out the name. A large chakra burst spread throughout the clearing. Seeing nothing happen, Naruto looked back at the paper. There, at the bottom of the page, were sketches of the hand signs. Realising he had gotten the hand sign for tiger wrong, he flipped through the correct ones.

A few hours later.

"Whew that was exhausting. Hmm? What's this?" Naruto looked down at a sketch of an eye. The eye had three swords, all pointing downwards. Naruto reached out and traced the sketch.

Lightning flashed.

Naruto felt a pull on his chakra. After what felt like forever, the pull stopped, Naruto looked down and was surprised at what he saw… the sketch was gone.

It took Naruto a few minutes to recover from his shock, then looked up from the scroll to ponder about what had happened. His eyes drifted back to the scroll, aiming to learn another jutsu. Looking further into the scroll Naruto found another interesting jutsu that caught his eye. The shadow kunai clone jutsu. Quikly trying it out, he found it was basically like his shadow clones, except they didn't have a conscience or half of the users chakra.

Well, I'm off. Naruto jumped out of the room onto a tree branch, and started roof hopping towards training ground one. The moon shone down on the roof, illuminating him.

After a few moments he made it to training ground one. Only to stop. "Iruka-sensei?" The chunin looked at him and instantly started ranting.

"What are you doing Naruto?! That scroll is forbidden, why did you take it?!" Naruto blinked.

"What do you mean sensei? I completed the secret test just like Mizuki told me to. Here I can show you the shadow clone jutsu and the Shadow kunai clone jutsu." Naruto quickly decided that he would keep the weird eye sketch a secret.

"Mizuki? Secret test? What on…" Iruka was cut off by the sound of shuriken flying through the air.. He grabbed Naruto and jumped out of the way as ten shuriken flew at them from out of the trees.

"Why hello, Iruka, looks like the ruse is up, what are you gonna do?"Mizuki's voice was dripping with sarcasm before turning serious. "Naruto give me the scroll, now!"

"No! Don't give it to him!" Iruka shouted, gaining Naruto's attention. "He's a traitor!"

Naruto's expression turned confused, Mizuki? A traitor? He rushed off into the bush.

"Naruto, do you want to know why the villagers hate you?" While using a substitution with a discarded shuriken and clamping his hand over Iruka's mouth to stop him from interrupting.

"Why?"

"Because you are a monster! You killed hundreds of people! You are the nine tailed demon fox!"

Hopelessness seeped into his body uninvited. I'm… a monster. All those whispers, they… were right. I… don't deserve… to… live. Naruto slumped onto the ground. Mizuki grinned and threw his fuma shuriken at naruto. The massive weapon came closer and closer… schlink!

Blood dripped onto Naruto. Strangely he felt no pain. He looked up. "I-Iruka s-sensei? W-why did y-you do that? I'm the demon fox." Naruto's eyes met Irukas, confusion evident in them.

"No Naruto you are not the kyubi! You are Naruto Uzumaki, and you never give up. You could destroy the village, but I know you won't, after all, you can't become a hokage without a village. I Believe in you. You are merely the jailer of the nine tails. If you give into this, then you're giving up!" Iruka explained in a pained voice as he fell over, shuriken falling out of his back.

A lone Naruto tree hopped away from the clearing. Iruka came into view behind him.

"Naruto give me the scroll." suddenly Naruto jumped at Iruka with a kunai in his hand.

"How did you know I wasn't Iruka?" as he said that, smoke enveloped his form, revealing mizuki.

"Because I am Iruka." Naruto's form changed back to Iruka.

"Why are you helping him? He killed your parents." Mizuki tried to reason with Iruka.

"Yeah he did, the fox i mean, Naruto isn't the fox though, he is merely the warden for the vile beast. Naruto wouldn't harm one civilian in this village." Rage seeped into Mizukis eyes, a fuma shuriken flew at Iruka. Orange filled Iruka's view, a clang of metal resounded through the clearing.

"You hurt my sensei and I'll hurt you a hundred times worse!"

Naruto stood up, his face contorted in rage, eyes morphing into a pure white. "Shadow Clone jutsu!" Fifty clones encircled Mizuki. They each pulled out one kunai, wrapped an explosive tag around it, and threw it at him.

Mizuki just snorted at him. "Huh! As if that could hurt me!"

"Kunai shadow clone jutsu!" the fifty kunai turned into five thousand.

Mizuki's face went whiter than a certain snake sannin. Naruto grabbed the scroll and Iruka, before running for his life. The resulting explosion was almost as big as the academy. As it went off Naruto stopped and shouted, "Art… is an EXPLOSION!"

Elsewhere…

A man hesitated. Did I just hear what I think I heard? Hmm… yes a student needs teaching in the ways of my art. Deidara, an ex Iwa explosion corps nin thought to himself. Because of his hesitation in battle, his shoulder got run through with an enemy's tanto.

Back to Naruto…

Iruka watched the explosion, white faced. He then turned to Naruto and saw white eyes with one black sword staring back at him. "Close your eyes Naruto." Iruka tied his headband around Naruto's forehead. "Congratulations Naruto, you're now a genin of the leaf. I will see you on monday." Flames from the explosion lit up Naruto's eyes as tears began to fall.

"Thank you sensei!"

Having not seen what Mizuki had done, Hinata, who was watching from the treetops, was disgusted and heartbroken with what Naruto had done. It can't be… it must be. Naruto is a murderer. She dashed through the treetops back to the hyuuga compound.

An ANBU who was watching noticed a burnt headband flying towards him. The ANBU grabbed the headband and started to tree hop away when he noticed a purple figure tree hopping away from him.

Meanwhile at the hokage's office…

"Well done Naruto," the third hokage murmured to himself, as he observed the events from his crystal ball.

"Hokage-sama, Iruka is here to see you."

"Come in." Iruka walked in with Naruto on his back sleeping. "How are you Iruka? Come, come, sit down, we have a lot to discuss." Hiruzen Sarutobi motioned to the seat in front of his desk.