You will never guess what happen. Remember back in the Gaara tribute how I mentioned a friend that loved Naruto too. Well, she read this story and then draw Chi for me. I have fanart! Whoot!

The link is on my profile. [runs around like a headless chicken]

Ok, this is Naruto's tribute. There are mentions of cross dressing via Kage Henge no Jutsu, NaruSaku, some KibaHina...uh...there are some yaoi-like material in there, but it's mainly for a joke.

Um...I wanted to say something else, but I can't remember it right now.

Disclaimer: Whitefox does not own anything, except maybe Shun and Tai, but that's really stretching it...

Naruto – Truth Behind the Legend

1. Namikaze Uzumaki Naruto has been called many things over the course of his life. He has carried the titles of Kyuubi-brat, monster, jinchuuriki, freak, loser, failure, dead last, annoyance, pest, friend, first crush, comrade, equal, best friend, apprentice, brother, god son, savour, first true love, hero, The One Man Army, The Hurricane of Konoha, the Neo Toad Sannin, the New Toad Sage, the only S-Ranked Genin in history, and finally the Rokudaime Hokage.

But above all, Naruto is been called a Legend.

Of course, several facts in that legend have been exaggerated. They made a movie, which they called Naruto: Will of Fire, about him one time. When his friends went to go see it, they were unable to look at him without laughing for three days straight. The kid who played him sounded like a less perverted, more focused version of Jiraiya, the girl who had the role of Sakura not only was hopelessly in love with him from the very beginning, but had implants, and Sasuke's character was just plain wrong. There was way too much speech making, way too much romance, and not enough realistic fact that everyone from the farthest reaches of Rai no Kuni to the most isolated desert tribe in Wind thought it was real.

But Naruto is not a Legend. He is not the semi-immortal, demi god that the world makes him out to be.

Naruto is a man, nothing more and nothing less.

This is his true story.

This is the truth behind the legend that is Namikaze Uzumaki Naruto.

2. Naruto's very first memory is of a pair of huge red eyes looking down on him. A voice whispers something, a word, and the blonde believes that to be his name.

The matron at the orphanage is terrified of him because he will only answer to the name Kyuubi.

Even after the Sandaime comes to inform him that his name is not Kyuubi, but Uzumaki Naruto, the woman still believes that the monster is lurking just behind the skin of the scrawny boy in front of her.

3. Naruto hates living at the orphanage. He hates the matron, he hates the other children, he hates the food, he hates the bed, he hates the walls, he hates everything! So one day, when he's four years old, Naruto runs from the woman who is yelling at him for the umpteenth time about something that he did not do and slams the front door in her face.

He spends the next two years living on the streets in Konoha.

And it is because of this that Naruto knows his home like the back of his hand. He knows every turn in the streets, all the alleyways and the backs of shops. He knows the best places to hide, to sleep, to get food, and to watch the stars.

Naruto learns to gamble at a young age. He knows enough swear words to make old sailors weep and can pick a pocket better than most chunin.

But while most would have hated it, those two years are the best part of his entire childhood because he is free.

4. Naruto does not initially become a ninja to fight for his village. He becomes a ninja to get a home.

There had been one too many days that he had woken up and not been able to find food. While life on the outside is wonderful, the boy thinks that it is time to settle down and start making a steady income.

The teachers at the academy set him up in the large apartment complex that war orphans that are too old to stay at the orphanage use until they can buy a home for themselves. The girl who lives beside him is really nice, and on the day that he moves in she bakes him some muffins.

Honest to goodness muffins.

Naruto never sees her again, though. The very next week, management cleans out her apartment. He asks them if she is coming back, because he still has the box she gave him the muffins in. They give him a look before telling him, `Welcome to the World of Shinobi, kid."

He still has the box, just in case she does show up.

5. Naruto has, to date, made three promises of a lifetime. The first one is not as well known as the last two, but is just as important.

One day when he is seven, Naruto watches as a little pink haired girl decks some kid for saying that her forehead was big. He watches as her soft green eyes become a raging inferno of emotion and he dares to call her beautiful.

Uzumaki Naruto swears that someday he is going to marry that girl.

6. Naruto originally wanted to become Hokage because of something that Yakamana Ino said.

Her words exactly are, "The day that I allow you to take Sakura out on a date is the day you become Hokage."

Naruto does not even know what a Hokage is at the time, but when he does find out, his dream changes from taking the girl with blazing green eyes out on a date to gaining the respect of the entire village as the most powerful warrior in history.

The fact that, as Hokage, he would be King of all while Uchiha Sasuke would remain a lowly Prince never even crosses his mind.

When he is nineteen and has finally achieved his dream, Naruto walks up to Ino during the reception and asks if he can take Sakura out on a date now. She, the only person to get it, breaks down laughing before responding yes.

7. During the years that Naruto stays at the academy, the teachers there were rather averse to having the Kyuubi-brat in their classroom. Many thought that letting him learn ninja techniques would make him become too powerful and that he would turn on them. It was only the because of an order from the council (who believe him to be their civil war weapon) and a request from the Hokage (who thinks of the boy as a grandchild) that kept them from throwing him out on his first day.

All of his teachers have, at one point, sabotaged his tests. Even Iruka is guilty of marking him harder than academy standards call for when it comes to shuriken throwing or taijutsu practice. They stunted his growth in hopes that Naruto would quit and never try to manipulate chakra again.

After all, no one wanted Kyuubi no Youko to rise once more.

But this would lead to several problems that the blonde would have to face later in life. The most devastating and least noticed of all of these problems is that Naruto cannot read or write anything other than his name, the numbers one to ten, and the word Hokage.

He is only able to learn Kage Bushin no Jutsu from the Scroll of Sealing because of the intricate diagrams that are drawn beside the description.

He is unable to pass Ibiki's test during the first exam because he has no idea what is written on the paper.

No one noticed, or even paid attention, to the fact that after he sees his name on the electronic board during the preliminaries of his first and only chunin exams, Naruto looks around wildly to see who his opponent is as he cannot read the words "Inuzuka Kiba" just below his name.

It is Jiraiya that finally realizes Naruto's problem and personally sits down to remedy it when he is fifteen. This is one of the many reasons why the blonde believes the Toad Sannin to be like his father.

Iruka still feels a wave of guilt when he walks into Naruto's office to see him sounding out the words on a document like an eight year old child despite being in his late twenties.

8. Naruto has, to date, been kissed by a grand total of four woman and three men.

His first kiss is an atrocity. Looking back on it, the blonde decides that it was fairly stupid to hop up in front of Sasuke and just snarl at him while sitting in a position that was anything but balanced. The beating afterwards by the Uchiha's enraged fangirls, though painful, is a blessing. It helps Naruto get over the fact that he just kissed Sasuke (who's like his older brother and doing…that…is like incest gone horribly, horribly wrong) and concentrate on surviving.

His second kiss, though not on his lips, is from Tsuande. It has a message behind it, one that is shouting, "If I'm going to be Hokage, you better be ready because you are my successor, brat." And Naruto is overjoyed because someone has finally agreed with him in that he is going to become Hokage one day.

When he thinks back on his third kiss, Naruto believes that he should have seen it coming. The guy had been so deprived as a child that emotions like "friendship" and "love" were about as foreign to him as an ocean. And so, confusing the feeling of friendship for that of romantic love, Sabaku no Gaara ends up frenching Naruto in the middle of a crowded street.

Needless to say, neither of them have spoken of it since.

His fourth kiss was from Temari, who probably did not even know what she was doing at the time. So overjoyed that her baby brother was alive, safe from the Akatsuki organization that had kidnapped him, the blonde Suna nin kissed Naruto on the mouth before dancing back into the crowds to welcome Gaara back home. He had not moved from the spot when Lee found him fifteen minutes later and managed to snap him out of it.

Temari claims that she does not remember a thing.

Naruto's fifth kiss came from Shion, the priestess from the Land of Demons. Just before heading back to Konoha, the girl kisses him in full force and tells him that if he was ever in the neighbourhood to stop by. To this day, the blonde does not know why Sakura refused to talk to him all the way home.

His sixth kiss came from Sakura herself the day he woke up in the hospital the day after the fight with Sasuke. He cries in her arms, saddened not only by the loss of his first real friend, but by the fact that Sakura had to kill the man that she was in love with. She lets out a sad sigh and cups his cheek with one hand.

"Baka," Sakura smiles, "That was a long time ago, and I've moved on."

She kisses him softly and sweetly before Naruto comes to his senses and takes over, showing this beautiful woman (that he is now on top of) all the pent up emotion and fire that he has hidden away since he was seven.

"I love you," he mutters into her lips, pressing her further into the mattress.

"I love you, too," Sakura responds.

And then Itachi walks in, blinks, stares at them for a bit and then says, "I'll come back later then…"

Naruto never got the name of the seventh person that kisses him. He had gone in a bar one day as Hi no Naruko. Then this guy walks over to him, kissed him on the mouth, and then asked what "she liked to do for fun." Naruto then told the man the truth in a deadpan that would have made an Uchiha proud:

"I dress up as a woman and go to bars."

Kanako, the lady who is sitting beside him, nearly drops her transformation and reverts back to Gaara from laughing so hard.

They left the guy the bill.

9. Naruto knows that his mother, Uzumaki Kushina, was a younger princess from Uzumaki no Kuni. What he does not know is that her two older brothers were also able to escape and have children of their own.

Uzumaki Shun and Tai are twins, identical in everyway except time of birth (Shun was a couple minutes older). Both have short cropped red hair and mud brown eyes. Both have rather blunt personalities, something that they share with their younger sister.

When the Kingdom falls during the Third Great Shinobi War, the royal family is split up in order to keep them out of enemy hands. Shun runs to north to Kumo, Tai takes a boat and heads east to Kiri, and Kushina travels west to Konoha.

All three fall in love, get married, have a single child, and then die within minutes of their child's birth. The only difference between the three is that Kushina is the only one to have a boy.

Shun's girl is sold into slavery at a young age. Tai's child is captured by ship raiders and used as a bargaining chip to get through customs. Kushina's boy becomes a jinchuuriki.

What is also quite interesting is that all three cousins have met each other at one point in their lives. Though upon meeting Naruto, each of the girls met their deaths as well.

Tai's girl is crushed to death beneath a pile of logs at the age of fourteen. Shun's child is killed in battle when she is nineteen, dying in the arms of the man who should have been her lover.

Naruto will never know that once upon a time he did have a family or that he is now the sole heir to an entire kingdom.

As irony will have it, neither will Tayuya or Karin.

10. If Kyuubi no Youko never attacked Konoha, the Legend that is Namikaze Uzumaki Naruto would have been very different.

Kushina would have survived giving birth to her son and upon hearing of her brothers' deaths, she would adopt Uzumaki Tayuya and Karin into their family. Naruto would grow up with two older sisters, loving parents, and a very perverted Uncle Jiraiya.

He would graduate at age ten; make chunin at twelve, and then jonin at sixteen. The Uchiha Massacre would never occur, but Naruto would have to talk Itachi out of ANBU and back into the real world. Itachi would believe that he owes the family his humanity and vows to serve them for the remainder of his days. Kushina just tells him to shut up and eat his ramen.

Rock Lee would be held back another year, but the Hokage would make an under-the-table deal with Gai that would let him make genin with Uchiha Sasuke's class. Naruto would be the idol of many of the boys and the fascination of the girls, both of which would be under the impression that the Yondaime's son only hung out with strong people.

The most interesting part of it all would be Team 7's love life. Kakashi would still be the ladies man he is today, but it would be Sakura with the monster crush on Naruto. Lee would challenge Sasuke to duels for Karin's heart, the latter of whom would all but stalk the glasses wearing girl.

Orochimaru's invasion would be over in a matter of minutes; one quick Hiraishin and a kunai slash later, the immortal-wannabe is a dead man. Gaara would still "see the light" during the invasion, but not in a battle against Naruto. The Suna jinchuuriki would fight and lose to Tayuya, whose music would calm the monster inside of him until he is able to regain control over his mind. The boy would later begin to have a small crush on the Uzumaki girl, which would become a big one, and finally transform into all out love.

The search teams sent into the Oto bases would discover Suigetsu and bring him to Konoha. Karin would look after him while he was in custody pending release. The former Kiri-nin would mistake her for a goddess the first time she walks into his cell, and the moment he gains a Konoha headband, he asks her out on a date.

Suna would fall on an earlier date, though there would be more survivors. Gaara would live, but he would loose both of his siblings that day. He, Baki, Matsuri, and about twenty others would make the trek to Konoha as refugees.

Akatsuki would still attack, because of the orders given by an Uchiha with nothing to lose. The Red Dawn Organization would parish in the battle, Suigetsu would gain Kisame's sword, and the dying Pein would give Gaara the scroll, not Itachi.

Sakura would still marry Naruto (who would become Godaime, not Rokudaime), though their child would be a boy and named Haku. Suigetsu would be hospitalized for a month after having to fight off both Sasuke and Lee at the same time, who walk in on him making love to Karin. The two would never marry. Karin would say it was because she thinks she would look fat in the dress. Suigetsu would be terrified of what would happen if those two found out. Tayuya would marry one of the male Suna refugees, completely oblivious to the fact that the Kazekage had feelings for her.

But once again, all would come crashing down in Naruto's thirtieth year. Sakura and Naruto would not make it through the battle, though Tayuya and Suigetsu would. Itachi would die protecting Karin. Gaara would, once again, survive and use the scroll containing the time travel technique to send the four to them back to save the world.

If you think about it, is this world really all that different?

11. The day that Sasuke shoves Chidori through his heart, Naruto visits Kyuubi for what he believes to be the time.

The fox tells him that he is dying, and he says that he knows that already. The fox tells him that he is an idiot for trusting Uchiha Sasuke, the fool who would not heed his warning, and he says that he knows that as well.

Then Kyuubi says, "We can stop this, you know."

Naruto turns, "How?"

"We can make a deal, enter a partnership," the bijuu spat, "Let me make this clear, human: I am neither your friend nor your companion. I am only suggesting this because I refuse to die at the hands of an Uchiha."

"What's in it for me?" the Hokage asks.

"A small gift. I believe your friend from the desert calls his new ability "Jinchuuriki Puberty." What a lie that is," Kyuubi said, "I will control your sage chakra for you, instead of using clones or having those withered old toads do it for you. You will also gain the honour of being the only human that I have willingly let sit atop my head."

The blonde paused to think for a minute, "What keeps you from killing me the moment that I enter your cage?"

"You have my word, and I swear upon Inari-sama that I will keep it."

Naruto takes a deep breath before walking passed the bars of the giant cage.

12. The day that they let him out of the hospital, Naruto arranges a meeting with the Kazekage. When the two village leaders are alone in his office, the blonde takes out a knife and cuts off his own hand. Gaara raises a hairless eyebrow as he watches another one grow from the bloody stump.

"Tell me everything," the Kazekage says.

13. Of all the titles that he has accumulated over the years, Naruto believes that his second favourite (Hokage being number one, of course) is the one regarding his bingo book rating.

Because when he sees the enemy fleeing from him, the second S-Ranked Konoha nin in history to have blonde hair and blue eyes, Naruto likes to shout after them, "WHY ARE YOU RUNNING?! I'M ONLY A GENIN!"

14. People wondered for years whether Naruto was secretly a masochist, as he keeps trying to get Sakura angry, which generally resulted in him getting wacked over the head.

The truth is that Sakura is beautiful when she is angry, a fact that most males can attest to (Lee the most eagerly and Sasuke the most grudgingly). Her goody-two-shoes act drops like a cheap genjutsu, revealing the real her.

And Naruto loves her, the real Sakura, so much so that he will risk life and limb to see her everyday.

15. People have also wondered why Naruto never considered Hinata as a potential girlfriend. It is not that he does not find her attractive. Quite the opposite in fact. Naruto believes that Hinata is a very beautiful young woman, but she is just not what he is looking for.

Hinata is like a candle. Her flame is graceful and controlled. She can light up a room just by standing in it. As beautiful as the candle is, it is not what Naruto wants.

Naruto wants a bonfire, raging and untameable. He wants flame that will light up the night sky, sending smoke into the farthest reaches of the heavens so that people can see it coming a mile away.

But Naruto knows a man who can appreciate the subtle elegance of the candle. So he points Hinata in the general direction of Inuzuka Kiba.

16. During the years that he and Sakura were together, the male portion of the Konoha 12 kept telling Naruto to man up and pop the question all ready.

What they do not know is that the Hokage was ready to marry his girlfriend the moment she said "I love you" in the hospital that day. He even had the ring. But, he thought he would be courteous and ask her parents permission first.

The problem is that Sakura's parents are hard core Kyuubi haters.

Naruto asks them everyday for the next seven years if he can marry their daughter.

Whether they agreed so that he would finally go away or that they were actually giving him their permission is still up to debate.

17. Naruto's wedding was something to be remembered, but never discussed. If you were to ask any Konoha citizen about what happened, all they would ever say is that "Everything that could go wrong, did go wrong."

Leave it up to your imagination.

18. It is not a well known fact, but when Sakura tells him that she is pregnant, Naruto cries like a baby. He sheds tears of joy in his wife's arms because not only has it finally hit home that he has a family, but that he is going to be a father, too.

19. It is well known that during the time that Sakura was in labour, Naruto has to shape shift to repair his legs five times, his arms three times, and regrow a certain piece of male anatomy twice.

Gaara does not know that about half of the girlish screams he heard on the outside were in fact Naruto's, not Sakura's.

20. When Naruto realizes that, yes, he is in the past, and yes, that is Uchiha Sasuke sitting next to him, and no, he has not lost what little sanity he has left, he nearly has a panic attack. But he does not, because Sakura has just walked into the room.

"Do you want to sit down, Sakura-chan?" he asks, motioning to the seat next to him.

Then he looks at her, and sees her, the real Sakura, not that fake imitation her twelve year old self showed all the time.

"Sure," she answers and slides in next to him.

Naruto's hand crawls over, inch by inch, and slowly intertwines a single finger with hers.

Because he is not what the legend says he is.

He is just a man. And behind every man, there is an even stronger woman.

Naruto needs Sakura.

Now more than ever.

The muffins return!

Well, now that I got that out of my system I believe explainations are in order.

Number 7: Apparently it gets harder to learn things like reading and writing the older you are. Naruto sort of taught himself what he needed to survive when it came to words, but must of it came from Jiraiya and...well..his 'novels'. As for the Iruka thing, I just wanted to break with the tradition of making Iruka the only one that really teaches him anything at school.

Number 8: This is my contribution to the yaoi community. Don't expect a lot more.

Number 9: It's just this little theory that I have, along with my hope that Naruto actually has some for of flesh-and-blood family out there.

Number 10: Now this here is my brain child. I seriously doubt that I will ever create a story that goes along with it, but if you want to, PM me and I can fill you in on some details as well as give you some free publicity.

Number 11: I got the idea when I saw Kirabi on top of the Hachibi's head. Also, I wanted to demonstrate the difference between Kyuubi and Shukaku's relationships with their containers.

Number 17: What ever you come up with, it happened.

That's all for now.

Have you seen the newest manga chapters? I've come to a conclusion about Nagato since reading them: He really needs a shink. Though the Toad Sage/Kyuubi eyes are very, very cool.

Later,

Whitefox