Title: Changing it to Fit

Chapter: 5

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto!

A/N: I did indeed take OaA down. I'll repost it after some serious revisions are made to the chapter content and the outline itself. I'd like it if reviewers could point out any major plot-holes I may have accidentally made. Along with any huge grammatical/spelling/punctuation errors. I'm not good with dialog so keep an eye on that because there'll probably be some huge problems with that. I'd really appreciate it!

Anyway...

On with the show...

"Kage Bushin no Jutsu" Naruto voiced softly as he concentrated on keeping the flow of chakra under his control. He was weary of this jutsu as its title bared a disturbing resemblance to the jutsu that was the bane of his ninja career. In fact, the only difference he could see between the two was that this made a tangible clone instead of an illusion. To his surprise, several clones poofed into existence.

"Wow! That wasn't hard at all! With the way Mizuki-sensei went on about this task being so difficult, I would've thought I'd need a few days to learn this!"

Naruto stood in the middle of his group of clones, pondering on why this had come to him so easily. He new a few jutsu, but hardly any of them had come as easily as this one had. That was especially odd since he seemed to have such a huge issue with regular bushin...

"I wonder where Mizuki-sensei is...he said he'd be here soon." Naruto wondered allowed. He studied the clones of himself for a bit longer as the talked amongst themselves before shrugging and rolling the scroll open to the next technique.

---------------(suggestions for some cool technique(s) that Naruto learned from the Forbidden Scroll would be apprecieated)---------------

Hinata was worried about Naruto. She had gone to his apartment after a meeting with her father in which Hiashi had congratulated her in his own cold Hyuuga way. Naruto hadn't been there, she'd even used the spare key he gave her to unlock the door and look around inside. No sign that he'd even come home after the Tests that day. It was then that a flash of memory hit her like a 2x4 and she stumbled and fell onto a bench in front of the apartment complex that Naruto lived in.

---Flashback---

"He really did that Naruto-kun?" An older Hinata asked.

"Hai, he really did. The bastard tricked me into stealing the Forbidden Scroll right from under the Sandaime-jiji's nose! That's how I learned the Kage Bushin, graduated from the Academy, and learned of Kyuubi all in one fell swoop." An older Naruto had replied.

Hinata had sat there staring into space for a moment before her friend and sensei Anko had arrived and roughly fell into the the chair next to her. They were in one of the jounin lounge rooms. It was

"What's gotcha so startled Hinata-chaan?" Anko asked loudly, drawing out the 'a' in 'chan'.

Naruto answered for her, "Nothing Anko-sensei, we were just recounting some of the more...interesting moments of my Academy days."

The snake-woman smirked, "I remember when I met you two! You were a loud-mouthed brat...your blood tasted sweet that day. Hinata-chaan here was just a shy little thing! I'm so glad I got a hold of her!"

Hinata smirked at her part-time sensei, "Yes, it's a good thing you beat up my father in front of me and the whole clan and then turned around and told me that he was a stuck-up asshole and that I should move in with you as a favor to a friend so you could train the shy disposition out of me. My father still shudders is someone draws out there s's for too long."

Anko smirked back, "Yep! And no, I'm not going to teach you my super special torture genjutsu until you can beat me without your special clan crap!"

Hinata pouted at her sensei before turning to Naruto who had been attempting to leave unnoticed by the two psychotic women and said, "Where do you think your going my Naruto-kuuun? I didn't say you could leave me yet..."

While she spoke, she'd gotten up and begun to walk slowly towards him. He smirked and suddenly disappeared with a puff of smoke and Hinata went back to pouting, "I knew letting him learn that jutsu was a mistake...now how will I ever keep him where I want him?"

Anko smirked at her, "You're on your own with this one deary, I swore off men a long time ago for a reason!"

----End Flashback----

With wide eyes, Hinata realized where Naruto had disappeared to. She then cursed his future self for never telling her where exactly he'd run off to hide with that scroll...

------------------------------------Techniques please? I'm at a loss as to what he should learn...an amazing medic-jutsu or two? NO MOKUDON PLEASE!------------------

"No! Naruto, don't give him the scroll! Mizuki is a traitor!" Iruka shouted to him. Naruto was confused, Mizuki-sensei had lied to him?

"Ha! If you won't give me the scroll I'll take it from your dead body!" Mizuki threw several kunai and shuriken at Naruto who was frozen in shock, his mind attempting to catch up with the situation. A moment ago he had been practicing with another jutsu from that scroll when Iruka had suddenly rushed into the clearing and started yelling at him followed shortly by Mizuki. He jumped away at the last second and Iruka relaxed a little bit. He didn't stay relaxed for long however as Mizuki began talking again.

"Naruto, do you know that the whole village knows a secret that you don't?"

A secret? He wondered to himself.

"I can see the curiosity in your eyes, shall I tell you?" Mizuki said with a sadistic grin on his face and a slightly insane glint in his eyes.

"No! Shutup Mizuki!" Iruka shouted somewhat hysterically.

"Ah, the one who pretends to accept you but really he hates you! Because of this secret, because you are the reason he has no parents!" Mizuki continued, despite Iruka's continued shouting at him to stop.

Naruto looked from Iruka to Mizuki, a feeling of dread building in his chest. Did he really want to know? It didn't matter because Mizuki was about to reveal the thing that would clarify Naruto's past and change his future.

"The reason the villagers hate you, the reason Iruka secretly hates you is that you are the Kyuubi no Kitsune! The demon that killed hundreds and among those hundreds, Iruka's parents!"

Naruto's thought process totally froze at this revelation. Before either man could do anything, he turned and fled into the forest.

Mizuki smirked in triumph while Iruka watched place Naruto had stood in horror. Mizuki was about to pursue Naruto when Iruka spoke up angrily. "Mizuki, why did you have to tell him that?"

"Because it is the truth. Now if you will excuse me I have a demon to kill and a scroll to steal!" Mizuki made to run after Naruto when Iruka threw a kunai at him. He dodged and Iruka said, "Not before you get passed me you won't!"

Mizuki continued to smirk and sped off into the forest as his accomplice threw a windmill shuriken at Iruka's back. He heard Iruka shout as the weapon made contact and his accomplice soon joined him in his pursuit.

As they were running, Mizuki suddenly spoke up. "I no longer need you."

Before the nameless man could process what he'd said, Mizuki moved behind him and thrust a kunai into the base of his skull. Thus severing the spinal cord and insuring the man's death bye suffocation/asphyxiation due his heart and lungs being paralyzed.

'Damn you...' the man mouthed at Mizuki as he died.

Mizuki never saw the mouthed words, he was long gone after Naruto.

Naruto meanwhile, was sitting in a tree thinking things over. He quickly realized that this would be something to tell Hinata, no matter what her reaction since she would most likely already suspect something. She was perceptive like that. He also realized that Iruka probably didn't hate him. That part was Mizuki attempting to psyche him out so that Naruto would be easier to kill, or so he told himself.

Iruka made his way towards where he figured Naruto would be but quickly caught site of Mizuki so instead henge'd into Naruto to attempt to trick the traitor. It worked to a degree, until Mizuki realized the trick and began taunting Iruka about Naruto and generally insulting everything and everyone Konoha. Revealing his whole plan in the process.

When Iruka told the story of his Academy days Naruto, who had been in a tree surrounding the area Mizuki and Iruka had stopped in, revealed himself and shouted back at Mizuki that he wouldn't let him touch Iruka.

"What can a dead-last genin like you do to stop me?" Mizuki taunted.

"You want to see what this dead-last can do? Well, watch!" With that, Naruto formed a familiar crossed seal and shouted his soon-to-be favorite technique.

"Tajuu Kage Bushin no Jutsu!"

The clearing was suddenly much smaller as one-thousand Naruto clones filled it and began brutally beating Mizuki to within an inch of his life. Once all of the clones were dispelled, Naruto walked over to Iruka and asked if he was all right.

"Yea, I'll probably have a pretty new scar in a few weeks, but I'm fine otherwise..." Iruka said ruefully as he winced, "Naruto, come here and close your eyes."

Naruto did so. He felt something being tied around his head, but dared not believe that it was what he thought it was. It wasn't as if Iruka carried spares around with him...

"Okay, open!" Naruto did and saw a headband-less Iruka in front of him, "You graduate! That was an amazing display of Kage Bushin!"

A bright sunny grin spread across Naruto's face as he latched onto Iruka's middle, "Thank you!!!"

Iruka winced but smiled, "How about some ramen later, to celebrate?"

Naruto just nodded against his favorite teacher in the whole world.

In the trees, a pair of ANBU watched the scene with smiles behind their masks. They could wait for a few minutes to bring in the traitor and the scroll, ne?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The next morning, Iruka's classroom was full of rowdy preteens waiting for their teacher to arrive. Hinata sat alone next to the wall in the back with no one around her. The others could sense the dark cloud around her and she was visibly moping. That was, until a certain sunny-haired fox boy entered the room with his hitai-ate displayed proudly on his forehead.

Hinata practically leaped down from her place in the elevated fourth row and tackled Naruto to the ground.

"Naruto-kun! Where were you?! How did you get that headband?" She asked him as she blushed and got back up, giving him a hand up as well.

"I'll tell you later Hinata-chan. Right now we have to listen to Iruka-sensei to find out our teams!" He said vibrantly.

Iruka entered at that moment and Naruto followed Hinata back up to the back row. A brief whispered conversation with Shikamaru over the authenticity of his graduation later and they were seated, Iruka shouting for everyone to be quiet. Sasuke was seated a row down and four seats over from where Hinata was out of respect for her bad mood but he now wished that she hadn't seemed so unapproachable as he was seated between his to worst fan-girls. Sakura and Ino were alternately glaring at each other over him and talking at him quietly while Iruka was making his speech about teams. Sasuke looked longingly up at his two friends, this quickly changing to a glare as Naruto smirked and stuck his tongue out at him.

The whole room was brought to attention again as Iruka finally got to the point and began assigning teams.

(A/N: I had a big long debate with myself as to how to do these teams. Switch Hinata and Sakura? Or not? Ultimately...oh, and if I mixed up team 8 and team 9...oops? I'll fix it later if I did.)

"Team 7 will be Haruno Sakura, Uzumaki Naruto, and Uchiha Sasuke! Team 8 will be Yamanaka Ino, Akimichi Chouji, and Nara Shikamaru! Team 9 will be Inuzuka Kiba, Hyuuga Hinata, and Aburame Shino! Your jounin senseis will be here shortly." Iruka finished.

Hinata and Naruto shared a sad look while Sasuke contemplated the merits of braining himself with the desk as Sakura just kept squealing in delight. Ino was glaring at everything that was moving and plotting Sakura's death while everyone else appeared to be fine with their team assignments. Though Shikamaru could be heard muttering 'troublesome' over and over again.

Asuma and Kurenai arrived to pick up there teams at the exact same time and had in fact been enjoying a conversation on interrogation tactics while walking together.

Kurenai took her team to training ground 9, Hinata followed her sensei quietly. When they arrived at their destination Kurenai had them sit in a half-circle in front of her.

"Okay, my name is Yuuhi Kurenai, I will be your jounin instructor until you are all deemed worthy of graduating to chuunin level or you are transferred to another team. I like to practice my genjutsu, talk to my friends, and sing karaoke. I don't like perverts, peeping toms, or people that underestimate the power of genjutsu. My dreams for the future are to be a good teacher to you three and to perfect as many genjutsu as possible. Now, I want you three to tell me you names, likes and dislikes, and dreams for the future. Starting with you, Hyuuga and moving on to the left."

"I am Hyuuga Hinata, I like learning medic-jutsu and training with Naruto-kun and Sasuke-kun. My dislikes are people that underestimate me, and anyone who thinks badly of Naruto-kun. My dreams for the future are to...well, I can't tell you in case the elders find out. I've another however, to help Sasuke-kun defeat a man."

'Interesting,' Kurenai thought.

"My name is Inuzuka Kiba and this is my dog Akamaru," Here Akamaru barked, "we work as a team! My likes are my family, my dog, and learning family jutsu. My dislikes are a certain dead-last baka, when my sister takes the bathroom in the morning, and cats. My dream is to master all of the family jutsu and to become a jounin!"

'Typical sibling rivalry,' Kurenai laughed internally.

"Aburame Shino. My kikai bugs. People who dislike bugs and kill them for no reason. To surpass my father's level of skill."

'Hmm. Silent type, eh?' Allowed she said, "Alright, that's great. I'm going to give you a test right now to determine whether or not you will become genin."

"What?! I thought we were already genin!" Kiba shouted.

"No, your Academy tests were to filter out the rabble. To see if you could have any possible hope for passing the real genin test. Now then. You have two hours to attempt to find me. If you do, you pass and if you don't then better luck next year!" With that, Kurenai made a hand seal and vanished.

"We need to work together for this." Shino said, getting over the shock of their teacher's abrupt departure nearly immediately.

Hinata nodded, "Hai. I will use my bloodline to search for her, Kiba-kun can you have Akamaru search for her scent? And Shino-kun. Your bugs could track her?"

"Yep! My mom is always saying that the flaw in most genjutsu users is that they don't bother to cover up their scent!" Kiba reponded.

"My bugs can sense her chakra. But it is dispersed. The best I can do is have them fan out and hope to run into her. Literally." Shino said with no inflection in his voice.

"Okay. Kiba, can Akamaru pick up her scent?" Hinata said after activating her Byakugan.

"He can smell the direction she's in. Nothing specific...I bet she put a weak scent genjutsu on herself too!" He exclaimed after listening to his dog bark for a moment. He pointed to the south of them and Shino sent his bugs to sweep that part of the forest. Hinata lead the boys into the forest and began to search in earnest for any trace of their teacher. A few moments later Hinata spotted a chakra laden clearing ahead of them and told Shino to concentrate his bugs there.

The whole clearing was layered with chakra, she saw. Shino sent his bugs swarming from one end of the clearing to the other, slowly working from the ground up to find their errant teacher.

Finally after fifteen minutes of searching the rather large clearing Shino tapped Hinata on the shoulder and pointed to a branch midway up a tree on the far side of the clearing. Hinata nodded and motioned for them both to follow her. They reached the tree and she tried to dispel the genjutsu but it resisted. After a brief discussion all three soon-to-be genin sealed and voiced 'kai'. The illusion dispelled to reveal Kurenai clapping for them.

"Good job. That took you three about 45 minutes from start to finish to find me hiding in a mid-level chunin ranked genjutsu. For green genin that is impressive. Congratulations Team 9, you pass your real Genin Exam! Meet here at 8:00am tomorrow morning for your first mission." After finishing her speech, she disappeared to report to the Hokage.

Naruto was still waiting for his teacher two hours after Iruka had left. He had fallen asleep at one point until Sakura had noticed and begun screeching about disrespect. Naruto had countered that argument with the fact that their sensei was already an hour or so late but she wasn't having it. So he had sat in and waited some more. He'd talked some with Sasuke but Sakura seemed to be giving him death glares whenever he so much as looked at her beloved Uchiha. Now Naruto was reduced to selecting the dirtiest eraser from the chalk tray and perching it in the door for their tardy sensei to enjoy when he or she finally decided to show up.

Sakura scoffed at the silly prank. "Like a jounin would fall for something as stupid as that, Naruto-baka!"

"Well, if he does then he's not a very good jounin is he? He mustn't be if he can't even keep track of the time!" Naruto responded just as the door opened and a chalk-laden eraser fell with a puff of chalk dust onto the head of one Hatake Kakashi. Much to all three genin's amusement.

"Well, my first impression of you guys is that...I hate you. Meet me on the roof." He finished as he poofed away.

"I really hafta learn that..." Naruto grumbled.

On the roof, several minutes later found Naruto and Sasuke glaring at their as yet unknown sensei while Sakura glared at Naruto and made googly eyes at Sasuke.

"My name is Hatake Kakashi, I like a few things and dislike a lot of things. My dreams are none of your business. Now you go pinky." He said, gesturing to Sakura.

She glared at him but went through with her introduction. It involved a lot of giggling and blushing and it is best to not mention it at all. Basically all that was learned was that Haruno Sakura was a fangirl to the bone and the unfortunate object of her obsession was Sasuke. All Kakashi could think was 'Jeez...a fangirl.' and roll his one eye.

"Next, you blondie." Kakashi prompted.

"Uzumaki Naruto, I like ramen and Hinata-chan, oh and Sasuke-teme I guess. I dislike the three minutes it takes for ramen to cook and people that underestimate me or hate for no good reason. My dream is to become Hokage and prove to the world that I'm worth something...and to help Sasuke defeat his...demons."

'Hmmm...that's very interesting. I didn't think Sasuke would tell anyone about that.' He thought.

"Finally, you the Uchiha."

"Hn. I'm Uchiha Sasuke. I like training and...my two friends I suppose. I dislike my fangirls and weakness. My dream...my ambition is to kill a certain man."

'That's about what I expected. An avenger to deal with. So, a fangirl, a dead-last, and an avenger. If these three pass my test it will be a miracle.' He thought, aloud he said, "Alright you three. Meet me in training field 7 at 8:00am and don't eat breakfast."

"Why not?"

"You'll through it up. I might as well tell you, this test has a 33 percent rate of failure." Kakashi poofed off of the roof and disappeared to do whatever it is that Kakashi does while alone.

"Sasuke, do you want to go on a date with me?" Sakura asked with stars in her eyes, the warning Kakashi had given filed into her mind with Inner-Sakura ranting away about it.

"No. Naruto, are you coming? We're supposed to meet Hinata-chan soon." He said.

"Hai, I'm coming. Bye Sakura-chan!" They both jumped across to the nearest rooftop and were gone.

Sakura slumped her shoulders and walked home, determined to try again the next day.

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"Alright Naruto, how did you fail the test yesterday but show up today with a headband and a note saying you'd passed?" Sasuke asked as soon as they were far enough away from Sakura and the rooftop.

"I'll tell you once we reach our meeting place and Hinata-chan. Just be patient teme." Naruto responded, unusually solemn.

Sasuke nodded and hastened his pace, eager to hear the story Naruto had to offer.

"Where were you two?!" Hinata demanded as soon as they reached their spot.

"Our teacher has an atrocious sense of timing apparently." Naruto said dryly, "Now, don't you want to know what happened last night?"

Hinata and Sasuke both nodded quickly and they sat down in a loose circle to listen to Naruto's story.

Naruto told them the basics of what happened, mentioning before Sasuke asked that yes, he would teach them the jutsu he had learned from the scroll later. When he got to the part about the Kyuubi he only hesitated for a moment before diving into that part of the story as well. When he finished there was silence in the clearing and Naruto braced himself for the worst.

Hinata suddenly threw herself at him (for the second time that day, he noted absently) and hugged him. Sasuke joined after a moment of hesitation and said, "Stupid dobe, we could tell that you thought we would reject you after this. Baka, you won't be rid of either of us that easily."

"Sasuke-kun is right Naruto-kun. We are your friends, I'd go so far as to say your family. You can tell us anything." Hinata added as the group hug broke up.

Naruto gave them a watery smile, he hadn't noticed when tears had started to fall down his face but they had. He wiped them away and whispered a thanks to his two best friends in the world, his surrogate family.

Sasuke smiled a small smile at his adopted brother and sister. They had kept him from the darkness of his own mind and the images his older brother had made him watch over and over and he would be forever grateful towards them for it. He didn't know what he would have done without them.

Hinata smiled at her Naruto-kun. She knew just how much courage that had taken for him to do. He'd told them nearly as soon as he'd found out about the Kyuubi. She felt sure at that moment that she could prevent all of their bleak futures from ever happening.

In the Hokage tower, Sandaime watched the trio with a smile on his face. Whatever came at them, those three would go far.

From a tree, Hatake Kakashi watched the Uchiha survivor smile and be mushy with his two friends and felt that maybe Sasuke could be turned from his path as an avenger. He hoped so anyway. He shrugged and poofed away again, it wouldn't really be his problem if his team didn't pass tomorrow...

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End of chapter 5

Well? What do you think. Please feel free to give me constructive criticism, I thrive on it. I need suggestions for some jutsu that Naruto learned from the Forbidden Scroll. They can be made up for all I care, but no Mokudon or anything that would require some special circumstance for Naruto to know. (Like a 'hidden' bloodline or something.) Like the flashback that reveals a little of the future/Hinata's past? There will be more where that came from, just not yet. Obviously. I believe I've just written another 4000 word chapter for this fic. If not 4000 then damn close to it.

Review? It's a beautiful shade of lavender, you know you want to gaze at it and then eventually press that gorgeous button just down a few pixels and to the left...