Minato sighed as he leant against the edge of the teacher's desk. The scene before him was nothing new, his son tied up and sitting on the floor in front of his Sensei while he was lectured on the importance of attending class. His son was smart, but he just couldn't sit still long enough to show others. He was starting to wonder if maybe the kid needed medication for his hyperactivity. But all that aside he was probably the sneakiest brat to ever come out of Konoha, even with his blindingly orange jump suit and in broad daylight where the whole village could see, he had painted the great stone faces and hadn't been caught till after he had finished.

"I'm at the end of my rope Naruto, tomorrow you've got a chance to pass the graduation test but you're going to mess up your chances." Iruka, one of the few who treated Naruto like a normal kid, said.

Naruto narrowed his eyes and stuck his nose up in the air in defiance. "Humph."

Minato didn't even try to hide the smile as Iruka's eyes bulged out of his head. "Fine! Because you missed it Naruto, everyone will review the Transformation Jutsu!" he declared as he turned and pointed to the class who groaned.

Minato felt himself grimace, not the transformation jutsu, anything but that. He watched as the class lined up at the front of the room and Iruka pulled out a clipboard to grade them. The first one to step up was a girl with pink hair and a scary temper, if he was going to be truthful, she kind of reminded him of Tsunade but she didn't really have any skill. She transformed perfectly into Iruka. Next was Sasuke Uchiha, the last of the Uchiha. He was top of the class and preformed the jutsu just as perfectly as the Sakura girl had.

"Good." Iruka said jotting a grade don on the clipboard. "Next, Naruto Uzumaki."

Minato watched as Naruto walked forward and took a stance, the mischievous smirk on his features was all the warning he had to look away as his son transformed. At some point while working on the transformation jutsu he had formed his own jutsu. Minato was half convinced that the Fox might have leaked some of his more impish nature to his vessel.

He bowed his head as a surge of chakra, too much for a transformation jutsu, and a poof of smoke signaled that the jutsu had been completed. There was a moment of silence before he heard Iruka.

"Huh?" he squeaked.

The next thing he heard was Naruto's insane cackling. "Gotcha, that's my sexy jutsu." He said between laughs.

Minato looked back up; this kid was going to get himself killed just from pissing people off.

"Cut the stupid tricks! This is your last warning!" Iruka screamed at him. Naruto didn't seemed fazed by it at all, after all there's only so many times you can be yelled at before it becomes commonplace.

Minato decided to leave after that, it was almost the end of the school day so there wasn't much else he could observe. Besides he needed to check up on the Third to keep himself up to date on the goings on of the Village. He gave one last glance to Naruto before leaving. For the last four years he had been secretly and discreetly training the little ball of energy, he had even gotten so far as to help Naruto set up a routine for training so that he didn't always have to be present. Unfortunately, no one had caught on yet to some of his teachers pointing him in the wrong direction during training so Minato had to work twice as hard to give Naruto tips and remain unseen.

He figured it was probably for the best that Naruto couldn't see him, as far as he could tell Naruto didn't know who he and Kushina really were. How could he tell his only son that he had sealed the strongest of the tailed beasts in him and then left him on his own? He just couldn't do it; he still didn't know all the circumstances so he really couldn't tell Naruto why he did it. He wondered if Naruto would ever be told.

XxX

Naruto waved goodbye to Iruka-sensei one more time before turning around and running back to his apartment. Because he had to clean all the paint off the stone faces he didn't really get a chance to train. Over the past few years he had developed a schedule for his training, he wasn't exactly sure how he did but it had happened just the same.

He remembered a few years ago that the Old Man had said that the Fourth Hokage was watching over him, he wondered if he did that for all the orphans of Konoha. He used to like to pretend he could see the Fourth sometimes but that didn't happen anymore, now he liked to think that he could sometimes hear the Fourth giving him advice and helping him train. Sometimes scrolls would appear in his little training area in the woods or in his apartment that would contain exercises or taijutsu moves in them.

All in all he was convinced that this meant he was destined to be Hokage after all. One of the only weird things was that he had incorporated meditation into his routine, he really didn't see the point of it but he did it every night regardless. another weird thing was that when he had found a scroll on tree walking he had wanted to show his friends at school but when he woke up the next morning he just had the feeling he should keep it to himself. That had happened a few times, when he learned a new skill he would be already to show it off but something always held him back. He didn't put too much thought into it but figured it was his subconscious telling him to wait so he could surprise everyone and show them how awesome he really was.

Another thing his subconscious tried to get him to do was give up all things orange, he decided to ignore this especially when that Ibiki guy said he looked like a real ninja in his orange jacket and pants. At first he thought it was just so they could spot him easier but he still managed to pull all his pranks off flawlessly and even if they knew he was the culprit, they still never caught him in the act.

He pushed all those thoughts out of his mind as he finally walked into his apartment. He closed and locked the door behind him before walking over to the end of his bed. He shrugged his jacket off before taking up a cross legged position on the floor and began to focus on his chakra. Chakra control had always been a problem for him, he had been told countless times he would get chakra exhaustion because he used way too much for the simple jutsu's they taught at the academy. But he had never managed to use all his chakra and when they were given exercises to do so in school, his senseis would always get impatient and tell him to stop before he could. It was frustrating for everyone involved to say the least and was just another thing that marked him as different from the rest of his peers.

Remembering that the final exam was tomorrow, he made a mental note to squeeze in some studying time before he went to sleep. He should have asked Iruka-sensei about helping him study for the test while they were eating ramen. Oh well, no use worrying about it now, besides he was guaranteed to pass, as long as they didn't test on the clone jutsu.