Prank and discovery

Going to apologize in advance for the shortness of the chapter following this, as while I could spend more of this month writing this to make it my self induced minimum of 4,000 words I unfortunately will be severely busy and won't be in the mood for much else as I'm attending a funeral.

Responding to a few comments, lalan, I gave my reasons why Hinata will be his pairing, and if that's why you're choosing not to continue reading then fine, but I'm not going to change the pairing to suit your tastes, this is my story, and I get final say in how it goes and who lives and who dies! I will not change this for you. Also, me not having Naruto seen yet despite this being a story about him is again my prerogative as the writer, I've seen several other stories that don't have him in the first or second chapter because like me, the writers, like me, are setting things up for the story to make sense.

It simply wouldn't do for my OC to simply kick the door of the academy in and grab Naruto out of nowhere in the first chapter.

Amusing though it may be.

guest2: Shino and Fu? I've seen this pairing a couple times and I do like it, but I mentioned before, this will follow cannon heavily. I can work Naruto meeting Fu by chance as I do have a mission involving him going to the hidden waterfall but I won't say more on that.

guest3: Reason he didn't destroy the eye is simple, he doesn't know about it. All he sensed was that a genjutsu was being attempted on him and he reacted accordingly. Same with the arm

guest4: maybe~ who knows what my plans for her are~

Mango: certainly hope that was from laughter or enjoyment, and here's the next part!

One more thing to address, I am making Naruto's growth and Hinata's REASONABLE! They will not be spitting out fireballs the size of a house or punching down trees in a few months! My honest thoughts are that both of them have decent potential, with Naruto's naturally being higher given the circumstances, by graduation at age 12 it would be fair to say they'd be mid-chunin. And before some naysayer comes barking at me, recall that Kakashi and Itachi were jounin and ANBU at that age!

Naruto smirked as he waited for his latest prank to be triggered by the store owner who had kicked him out yesterday. Soon as that old hag opened her cash register it would trigger the paint tag he had slid in when she had looked away after opening the store and flood her entire shop with neon orange paint!

The blonde whiskered child in a white shirt and black shorts giggled watching from the rooftop across the street. He did this prank for two reasons. The first was obviously retribution for being such a mean old hag and shrieking at him so hurtfully with that shrill voice!

Huffing he began to recall the previous days events. It had been an average boring day at the academy, the teachers save for Iruka had given the usual sneers and the children were almost as bad, save for those he recognised as being from clans, though a few did seem wary or just outright strange.

Then came that rage filled scream, he and the rest of the class had been feeling a cold sweat go down their back for a moment just before that, then suddenly came the ear splitting howl of what he thought was his hokage-jiji's surname, and without the warning the windows shattered though thankfully they didn't burst in, as he had taken to sitting by the window recently to stare outside to alleviate his boredom in some form or another. So he got a close up view as the window shattered into a thousand pieces before slowly crumbling from it's frame.

Truthfully that's the reason he was able to perform this prank today, as the Academy had to shut down temporarily to repair all the glass items in the building from the windows to the mirrors in the bathroom. To be honest Naruto felt thankful as the Academy was a waste of time in his young mind, all that history and other innocuous lessons that he couldn't see as being particularly useful for any decent ninja were just so mind-numbingly boring that he saw as yesterday's events as a godsend.

"'Sup kid."

Naruto barely held in the shriek of surprise that would have given him away and instead shot back in a flash across the roof trying to keep his heart from leaping from his chest as he observed the person who had so quietly invaded his personal space.

The man reminded him of The quiet guy in his class...Shino? Yeah Shino, the concealing cloak that covered most of the man's body was a dark blue, with gloved hands and a pair of boots peaking out, and his head seemed to be in deep shadow that shouldn't be possible with the raised hood hiding everything but the yellow eyes that made him think of the cat near his home.

The man broke his train of thought as he spoke again. "So, what are you doing?"

Naruto blinked at that and couldn't help by reply in kind, "What am I doing?"

The man's eyes had an amused glint as he asked again. "What are you doing?"

Naruto knowing that the man had spotted him and had probably guessed his intentions already so he went with denial, hoping to delay long enough for the prank to go off and maybe distract this shady guy long enough for him to escape before he turned him over to the shinobi for punishment.

"Oh you know, hanging around…"

The amusement in the man's eyes seemed to only increase as a small twinkle appeared in his eyes. "Hanging around?"

Naruto nodded to confirm. "Hanging around."

"Doing a prank?"

Naruto tensed knowing he had definitely been caught but the damn paint bomb hadn't gone off yet so he still needed to stall. "Doing a prank?"

"Are you?"

"No…"

The amusement never left the man's eyes as he turned them to gaze at the store the prank in question was placed. "Shame, I was hoping to see something funny."

That threw Naruto off. Strange questions aside he had expected the man to catch him and force the blond to remove the prank, but to hear that the man seemed more eager for it to actually happen brought the child to utter the most intelligible question he could.

"Huh?"

The man chuckled as he leaned on the low wall Naruto had been watching from before, looking at the store all the while.

"Like I said, I could use a good laugh. I've had a string of disappointing and annoying things happening the last couple days and I thought, seeing a nicely done prank would lift my spirits. So…" He turned to look at Naruto, his eyes crinkled in a hidden smirk. "...what did you do?"

Naruto later on would not know what compelled him to answer truthfully. Perhaps it was the positive attention this perfectly unknown stranger was giving him, or perhaps that the said stranger seemed to had genuine amusement for Naruto's handy work, but the young boy walked to the wall he'd scrambled from, making sure to have a healthy distance from the man in case he needed to bolt in case this was a trick, and gave a half hearted smirk. "A powerful paint tag, once triggered the entire insides will have a nice fresh coat, it's water washable so even if I get caught it's a quick fix."

The man let out a laugh that sounded strangely bark-like. "Bitchin', what triggers it?"

The positive reaction made Naruto's grin wider and let out a small chuckle. "When she next opens the cashregister it'll go off, she hasn't had any customers yet since it's early but one should be along soon."

The man chuckled as he sat down cross legged, his head still poking over the low walls edge to give him a view. "Well placed, and you had to have done it while she already had it open and looked away, that takes a good amount of skill for a kid your age."

Naruto gave a huff as he puffed his chest, looking up and away in a haughty manner he'd seen some snobs at the academy do when they flaunted something. "I'll have you know I take pride in my sneakiness! I've hidden myself from genin with ease!"

The man gave him an appraising look at that. "That right? That's rather impressive if your boasting has any truth to it…"

The whiskered youth bristled at the implication that he was putting on airs at his skill and was ready to give a verbal rant about his greatness before the stranger suddenly held up a finger before pointing and stating; "Show time."

Looking down Naruto grinned wide seeing a customer enter the store, and his grin grew wider seeing it was one of those stuffy old councilmen, this one in particular owned his apartment complex and had 'accidentally' turned off the hot water for his apartment before he told his Jiji about it after his third cold shower and having properly alerted the said councilmen of his problem. Of course, like usual the complaint had been met with a sneer and had been ignored.

The two didn't have long to wait as less than three minutes after the man entered they both heard a large FWOOSH! Before a wave of orange blasted the door open and shot out the missing windows into the street, and not five seconds later the same councilman came stumbling out, dripping in the orange paint before dropping to his knees and vomiting a bit of the orange paint out.

Naruto burst out laughing hard enough for tears to reach his eyes at the sight before turning his eyes to his guest and saw the man trying hard to hold in his laughter, a hand clamped over where the blonde guessed his mouth was as tears could be seen in the man's eyes, it didn't last long as the man let bent over holding the low wall and let out a howling laughter when the councilman turned, showing the back half of him had been clean of any paint before slipping in the puddle of paint he'd been kneeled in and fell on his back, thus completing the coat.

After a few minutes of the two laughing together the man wiped the tears from his eyes, letting out the occasional chuckle as he looked at the crowd now gathering below them. "Ah kid I owe you one, it's been awhile since I've had a genuine laugh like that! I used to have young ward that I cared for like a child, I met her about your age, and she too loved to prank people, and I loved to watch them as she'd show great creativity, much like you do."

Naruto grinned, enjoying the praise he could sense from the man's comparison to his...ward? Wasn't that what orphans that got adopted sometimes were called?

The man turned away from the mess below them walking to the opposite side of the roof and stepped up onto the side before he turned his head to look at Naruto again with his eyes turned up in what Naruto could tell was a smile. "You remind me so much of her, that Uzumaki girl."

Uzumaki?! Naruto was shocked at the name long enough for the man to jump from the roof out of sight, the action shook the boy enough to rush forward to peer over and see the man walking off. The young blonde's mind was awhirl from that last sentence the man had said, he knew another Uzumaki! Maybe a relative? A cousin?

Jumping from the roof and landing with a roll Naruto bolted to his feet and ran after the man. "Wait! What did you mean about that?!"

He saw the man turn a corner not far ahead of him, the young Uzumaki skid once he reached the street only to gape amazed seeing the man having seemingly teleported farther ahead about to turn another corner, shaking himself he went into a sprint to keep the man in sight, coming around the corner only to see the man still ahead by a large amount!

Weaving through the growing crowd of villagers the boy struggled to keep the cloaked man in sight and began to mentally curse his short stature as more often than not he'd lose sight of his quarry when he drew close, only to catch sight of him yet again dozens of yards away.

Had the young lad paid attention, he'd have noticed the stranger had been leading him towards the training grounds, or in particular, the forbidden training ground 20.

The trees and brush seemed to be working against him as they worked like the villagers to hide his view and allow the man to seemingly jump ahead to keep him out of reach. Bursting out of the treeline the Uzumaki paused, panting as he looked around for the man, having lost sight of him and let out a groan seeing the man had finally given him the slip as he was nowhere to be seen.

"Not bad, you managed to keep up somewhat and never gave up despite the difficulty."

Letting out a decidedly unmanly shriek Naruto whirled around,tripping over his own feet and fell on his rear, and pointed an accusatory finger at the man who had appeared behind him from nowhere. "STOP THAT! You almost made my skeleton jump out from fright!"

Refusing to look ashamed of himself the man shrugged at that as he moved to a stump and took a seat. "Not my fault you weren't aware of your surroundings. But the question of the momentis in fact, 'what prompted you to follow me."'

Naruto paused at that having almost forgotten his original purpose for following the man. Getting up he moved to stand in front of him, watching the man pull out a short pipe that he lit with a spark from his fingers snapping. Normally he'd gush at the 'awesome jutsu' but he had more important things to think about right now.

"What you said before...the person you said I reminded you about…"

The man took a puff before letting a stream of smoke out of his nose. "What about her?"

Here Naruto grew slightly nervous. "You said...you called her Uzumaki, right?"

The hooded stranger gave a slow nod as he took a deep breath. "Yes, her name was Kushina Uzumaki. She was a rambunctious girl, always going on about how she'd be the first female Hokage. It broke my heart seeing her die the night Kyuubi rampaged."

Naruto's heart sank at that, his hope that there was another living Uzumaki, possibly his only living family, was out there now lost to him.

"What's it matter to you anyway kid? You know, I don't believe I've gotten your name, yet you're here asking me questions so earnestly."

His mood deflated Naruto looked at the man and took a shaky breath. "My name is Uzumaki…"

"...Naruto. I already knew that. Seeing as Kushina told me when she named me your godfather."

Cliff hanger!

hanging from a cliff!

And that's why it's called cliff hanger!

internet cookies for those who recognize where that's from.

So we see our favorite blond at last and he meets Feral who enjoys a good bit of humor.

going to be honest, I was going to make this chapter much longer but given everything happening I thought that would be a good place to cut off

please leave a few comments and tell me what you thought!

flamers will be treated like my burn pit when it's smoldering and needs to be doused