Chapter 2

A gasp. An intake of air. A sudden flash of movement.

A four year old Uzumaki Naruto bolted up from his small bed. His eyes darted around his surroundings.

"Where am I?" he muttered. What came out of his mouth was not his normal voice. His was several octaves higher. "What the hell happened to my voice?" That was when he noticed that everything felt...bigger.

Getting out of bed, he found out that he couldn't even see over the top of the dresser.

"Either everything here is bigger, or I'm...No way!"

The blond dashed out of the vaguely familiar room before entering what he assumed was the bathroom. Instead of his normal tanned and muscular self, all he found looking back at him was a minuscule and weak little boy.

"No! No fucking way! This can't be happening! Alright, calm yourself. Go over your last memories," Naruto instructed himself with a deep breath. "Okay, I'm Akuma no Naruto. I've conquered almost every village in the world except Konoha. I attacked Konoha today, and defeated Danzo...But the bastard activated some self destruct seal! Fuck!" the small blond swore loudly. "All of the fame, the prestige, my reputation! All...gone! No, this can't be happening. No, no, no..." he mumbled.

Eventually, the boy stopped his angry mutterings. "This means I'll just have to rebuild my empire. Perhaps I should thank Danzo for his incompetence? If it wasn't for him sending me back in time or to a different universe or whatever, I would've been stuck ruling over some peaceful empire. That's no fun. The fun is all in the conquering! Yes, when I meet Danzo here, I'll be sure to give him an appropriate 'present'." He laughed like an evil scientist. When his laughter subsided, he realized that he couldn't really do any conquering for quite some time. After all, he was in some untrained four year old body with signs of malnutrition. Just like how he used to be before the great fox decided to take him in.

Speaking of which, this finally brought back long forgotten memories of his old home. This was his old home. This was place he had lived in for the first six or seven years of his life, in the slums of Konoha. Oh, it brought back fond memories. Memories of when he got his revenge on the villagers of Konoha, that is. It was at the time he left. His "revenge" was nothing lethal, but it could be considered painful and traumatizing...for the villagers.

Thinking to himself, he thought, 'It'll be quite some time until I'll be able to reach my past power. I'll need loyal followers to help me reach my goals until then. But who? Who can I convert to my cause?'

He barely remembered the kids his age, as he had never socialized with them. If they grew up to later become a strong shinobi, there was a possibility that they might spark some kind of memory from Naruto.

The Kyuubi also wouldn't be contacting him until his seventh birthday, so he had three years to start preparing both a support base among the younger generation and train himself to an acceptable level.

First things first, he needed to do some chakra control exercises.

Heading out, he locked the door, for all the good that would do him, and scampered off towards the outskirts of the village, where he knew the training grounds were. It took him thirty minutes, but he managed to alternatively run and walk the mile from his house to the grounds.

'Holy shit, how out of shape,' he thought as he doubled over with his hands on his knees, gasping in as much air as he could. Five minutes later, he felt that he had regained enough strength to do a little more running. Unfortunately, none of the nearby trees were over five yards tall, so he wouldn't be able to go far. It didn't really matter at the moment anyway, since he didn't have the energy or control to go all the way up the tree. Not caring for that fact, he continued to practice walking and running up the tree at different speeds and different times. Soon, his chakra reserves were depleted, and his progress was displayed by the shape of a heel mark about one yard up the tree.

Deciding that that was enough for today, he then slowly began his trek back towards his apartment, going over the people that could be convinced to join him. The best place, he thought to himself, to start looking is for people who hate Konoha.

But who hated Konoha that much?

For one thing, he remembered the incident with Kumo regarding the Hyuuga's Byakugan had greatly torn an individual apart with anger. Perhaps this youth could be persuaded? Unfortunately, Naruto, never having really met the Hyuuga, did know his name nor his face. The only thing he did know was that the boy was the son of the man who had been sent to Kumo as compensation.

Thankfully, this information shouldn't be too hard to come by. All it took was a little more practice with his chakra control and he could go about using a Henge to "gossip" with civilians.

-

By the end of the week, Naruto decided that he had enough control to mold his chakra to do the three Academy techniques.

A simple Henge, and he was out walking among the civilians in Konoha. The best place to gossip, he knew, was among the lonely housewives of the village, who often gathered in the marketplace to talk about who did what, who was cutest, and other such insequential nonsense.

"Hello there, ladies!" he said as he walked up to them in his disguise of a middle-aged woman.

"Hi," the women greeted back.

"Have you heard about that Hyuuga boy? They say he's a genius!"

"Really? The young boy is a genius? Where'd you hear that from?" one woman asked curiously.

"I heard some of the Hyuuga members talking about how their was a Branch member who was quite talented!"

"Oh, you must mean Neji!" the woman exclaimed. "I heard that too! You see..."

Naruto, still under a Henge, quietly slipped away, having obtained the information he needed.

The rest of the women never even noticed her disappearance.

-

'So, the boy's name is Neji. All I have to do is befriend him, and wait for tragedy to strike.'

At the time, not being too familiar with the habits of other kids his age, he did not realize that it would be quite difficult to find and meet Neji in the first place, much less befriend him.

Therefore, he spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around the local park, where he hoped he might spot Neji. This obviously failed, so he was about to trudge back to his apartment when he noticed two Hyuuga men standing guard over a Hyuuga girl, who was playing in the sandbox all by herself.

'Oh, right! Neji probably lives with the rest of the Hyuuga! Forgot all about their precious compound! Better shadow them,' he thought to himself.

When the guards took the young girl away, Naruto casually followed, trying to look inconspicuous. The moment that the Hyuuga Compound was able to be seen, his eyes left the trio for a moment to stare, and when they slid back, he immediately noticed that one of the guards had disappeared.

He suddenly felt a hand on his shoulder, spinning him around.

"What the hell do you think you're doing, you little piece of shit?" the chuunin Hyuuga asked with a glare.

"I just wanted to know where the Hyuuga lived," Naruto replied softly, playing the part of a young boy very well.

The man snorted and just pushed Naruto to the ground. "We live here. Now go away and bother someone else." Walking away, he quickly rejoined the young Hyuuga heiress and his fellow guard before returning to their compound.

'Well, at least I know where they live now,' Naruto thought.

-

A week later, Naruto had the extreme fortune of meeting Neji on one of the training grounds that he had discovered.

'Ohoho, this is way too easy,' he thought to himself.

Coming out of the underbrush, he approached the five year old Hyuuga and called out a greeting. "Hey there!"

Neji, who had already seen the blond boy due to his Byakugan, nodded without looking at him. "Hi."

"You want to spar a little?" Naruto asked. He was aware that his four year old body could not really do much in a fight, much less a spar, but he still had at least technique to help him.

"You sure? Aren't you a bit young for shinobi training?"

"Well, I can ask the same of you!" the blond declared.

Neji shrugged, not interested in explaining. "Alright then, let's spar a little."

Settling into a weak stance of the Jyuuken, Neji ran at the unprepared Naruto and struck with his palm. Naruto dodged and weakly kicked Neji in the side. The weak kick, reinforced by small amounts of chakra, was enough to send the Hyuuga rolling away, a bruise quickly forming where Naruto had hit him.

He leapt to his feet and immediately rushed at Naruto again. This time, he was more cautious of the blond. His Jyuuken strikes, while weak due to his lack of experience and age, were still enough to decimate anyone his age. However, Naruto deftly avoided them, thanks to the help of the stamina training he had done earlier.

When Neji finally let his guard down, Naruto punched him in the rib, sending the other boy stumbling backwards and falling on his rear.

"You're good," Neji stated, surprised.

"Thanks, so are you!"

"Not good enough. I couldn't even hit you..."

"Well, that's just because I'm good at dodging!"

Neji nodded, and the two descended into a brief silence.

"I'm Neji," he finally said.

"Naruto," the blond replied.

"Would you like to spar with me again? I can see that training with you may be beneficial..."

"Sure!"

And thus, Naruto and Neji's "friendship" began.

-

A few months later, October 10th rolled around. Naruto knew, as had happened in his previous life, that villagers would always come and try to kill him on these days. The change this time, was that Naruto could defend himself.

Thus, as the festivities began, several drunk men gathered and decided that chasing down the demon would be a fun idea. With raucous shouts and brazen threats, the men pursued Naruto down and about several alleys, until they reached a dead end.

"You're trapped now! Can't hide from us, you foul demon!"

"Yeah, we're going to get our revenge for what you did to our loved ones, Kyuubi!"

Naruto spun around, ready to say something along the lines of "I wasn't trying to hide", when a masked ANBU dressed in pitch black clothes dropped down.

"For breaking the orders of the Sandaime Hokage, you are sentenced to death."

In that one moment before their deaths, sobriety came to their minds, right until their heads rolled off their shoulders.

The ANBU turned around, revealing that his mask depicted a weasel.

"Hi, Weasel-san!"

'Odd. He shows no signs of a scared child, nor any recognition that five men were killed right in front of him. He is an anomaly. He must be studied.'

"Do you require any assistance?" Weasel asked.

"Nope," Naruto responded.

The ANBU nodded his head and disappeared.

Naruto calmly walked over the corpses and returned to his apartment.

-

The next day, the Sandaime sat in his office, rubbing his head, trying to soothe the growing migraine.

When Naruto had stepped out of the alley, unharmed, last night, several groups of angry civilians quickly entered the alley after the boy had left. There they found the five bodies of their fellow civilians, who they knew had entered the alley in the hopes to kill the demon.

There were immediately a whole batch of demands and petitions that the "Demon Child" be punished for the murders. However, Sarutobi had insisted that there was no proof that Naruto had done the deed himself. Of course, he had later been told by Weasel, the ANBU he had assigned to protect Naruto, that it was he that had murdered the men for breaking the law.

Sarutobi had used this new information to convince the council that there was nothing they could legally do, as the men had broken the law. Only Danzo and his two old teammates remained resilient against the information. Luckily, the ruling was in favor of Naruto, and the issue was dropped.

But now, Danzo had changed courses and had retaken up the demand that Naruto be put into the ANBU program to develop him into a weapon for Konoha. The demand was shot down before Danzo could even finish his argument.

This had only left the man to become angry and become a thorn in Sarutobi's side.

-

"Byakugan!" the six year old Neji cried aloud, right before striking at Naruto with his palms. His opponent continued to evade the attacks, until he had overstepped in one of his attacks, and Naruto had stuck his leg out. Neji tripped and fell to the ground, getting a face full of dirt.

"Argh!" the boy shouted in frustration. In the five months that they had sparred together, Neji had only hit Naruto once, and despite it being a full contact Jyuuken strike, Naruto had taken only a few seconds to shrug off its effects. While Neji was only a child, the attack should've been enough to cripple Naruto for at least several hours.

Neji remembered exactly what happened after that.

Flashback

"Hah!"

With a ferocious yell of triumph, Neji landed his first strike on the younger Naruto's body. He was prepared to gloat good-naturedly, but when the blond did not collapse, he stared with his mouth open.

"No way! I know I did it correctly," he muttered to himself. "How come you aren't falling over?"

"Oh don't worry, it's a special ability of mine."

"Would this 'special ability' have anything to do with that weird red chakra inside of you?"

"Yup! But you can't tell anyone, Neji! Promise?"

"Umm, ok."

"Good. Now let's keep going. You managed to hit me once, but can you hit me twice?"

End Flashback

"Damn it Naruto! Stop moving!"

"Aww, but where would the fun be in that?" he retorted.

Naruto would never admit it, but he was actually having some fun training Neji to eventually be what he wanted him to be. His training wasn't direct, but more indirectly, where he used childish taunts and goads to force Neji to work harder and overcome his weaknesses. And it was working too.

Neji, while skilled with his Byakugan and his precision in his strikes, was still physically weak. Just like he was. And since they were only about five years of age, weights were not ideal for use. Thus, Naruto showed Neji the gravity seals that he pretended to have found somewhere, applying them to both himself and the Hyuuga. Of course, the level of the seals were adjusted to be just a tiny bit heavier than normal, considering that they were still children. Unfortunately, this was slow going, since the seals could not be used for extended amounts of time. Not even the great Kyuubi would be able to fix a five year old Naruto's muscles if the blond had decided to crank up the gravity seals.

The frustrated, but smiling, Neji continued to train and play with his good friend Naruto.

This was his only time to truly be free. While his father would've doted on him had he the chance to do so, the man's duty was to act as the clan head's bodyguard, and thus Neji's father was always busy shadowing Hiashi, the current clan head. Neji was warned many times by his father to be respectful and polite when in the company of his uncle and the main branch members, like his cousin Hinata and her recently born little sister Hanabi.

With Naruto, he could be however he wanted, and even having fun would not be frowned upon!

Unfortunately, all good things had to come to an end, so when the sun set, Neji reluctantly parted ways with his best friend Naruto and went home.

-

A/N: Merry Christmas and happy holidays everyone!