JEFUH-FUH! DUN-HAM! Dot com! ^^ I love peanut! He is the funniest pink wuzzle ever! I really need to stop drinking coffee! But… I love coffee… Maybe that's why I'm so short? Anyway, y'all probably don't care about my life, so let's go make Naruto suffer! Muahahaha! … Yep, that's enough coffee for me.
Title: Protecting From The Shadows
Pairing: None… maybe later… if I feel like it
Warnings: I'M GONNA KILL SAKURA!!! I'm kidding! I'm kidding! Don't hurt me O.O X.
Disclaimer: If I owned Naruto, Sasuke would have a different haircut… and name. We all know what his name rearranges to.
Chapter 2
No one noticed the Uchiha in the doorway as Ino went on to describe Kitsune's exploits, most of them exaggerated.
"They say he became an ANBU as soon as he could walk, and they also say he's only our age! Personally, I thought it was Sasuke-kun until… anyway! He's invented a hundred S-class jutsus that only he can use, and-"
"-AS THE BLOOM OF YOUTH FOR KITSUNE IS UNBELIEVABLE!" Lee continued to shout until Ino threw an empty flower pot at him, hitting him square in the forehead and knocking him out.
"Gai clone, would you pipe it down?" she growled before turning back to her captive audience. They were too afraid to leave now.
"Hn." Sasuke grunted before striding back out of the shop, unnoticed by the others.
He remembered Kitsune. The ANBU had caught him and dragged him back to Konoha, it felt like a lifetime ago…
Flashback: 6 Months Ago
"Uchiha Sasuke, I was sent by the Hokage to drag your sorry ass back to Konoha. Will you come willingly or do I have to break some of your precious little bones?" The ANBU effortlessly stood on the river he had been resting by.
Sasuke jumped up and growled at the stranger. He was not going back to Konoha before he killed his brother, and if he had to kill a few Konoha Nin before he achieved his ambition, then so be it.
"The hard way, then? Good, I'm going to enjoy this more than you realize. You're a pain in the ass that needs some sense beat into you anyway." Kitsune called, and that comment did it. Sasuke charged up his cursed seal, and let it cover his body. Level one should be enough to deal with this idiot.
Much to Sasuke's anger, the ANBU laughed gleefully. "Seems like your time away from the village hasn't cured you of that stick up your ass. In fact, I think it's shoved it deeper, I can see the end poking out of your mouth!" Kitsune told him, and suddenly disappeared, without hand seals or even the usual poof of chakra smoke.
Sasuke frantically looked around, unwilling to be taken off guard. Where the hell was his team?!
"Oh, they're dead. They were annoying me, you know, with trying to kill me and all." THERE! Sasuke charged up his chidori and ran at a cluster of trees, where the voice had come from. The ANBU stood absolutely still in the middle of the cluster of trees, and Sasuke hit him easily, right in the middle of the chest. Arrogance was this man's downfall. At least, that was until the masked ANBU turned into just another tree, which split and cracked at the place where Sasuke had hit it.
"Tsk, tsk. I'm sure your teacher Kakashi taught you to look underneath the underneath. And now you've used up one of your powerful attacks. One more, and your chakra will be exhausted!" the voice echoed throughout the whole forest, not radiating from one spot.
"Show yourself, coward! I'm not afraid of you! I'll kill you, bastard!" Sasuke screamed at the entire forest, and the cursed seal went to level two, making him into a hideous monster, though he didn't care, he was more powerful!
"Ooh, is the big bad Uchiha going to get me? Wow, Sasu-chan, that's some bad plastic surgery, you should sue your surgeon. Get your money back or something." The ANBU appeared right in front of him, the fox mask grinning at him, mocking him. Sasuke charged with a roar.
He never felt the small pinprick on his neck, nor did he hear four more people drop down from the trees. All he knew was darkness.
End Flashback
Now Sasuke knew the ANBU had been playing with him. Kitsune had brought him back to Konoha, but not before deactivating the cursed seal's level two.
Thinking back now, he realized something about the insults the ANBU threw at him playfully were somehow familiar. That itself was strange, the only person who dared insult the Uchiha was Naruto, and there was no way in Hell that the Dobe was secretly an ANBU. It was not only unlikely, but downright impossible!
Little did he know, across town, the dobe was proving him wrong.
~~~~Hokage Tower~~~~
"Good to see you again, Kazekage-sama. Hokage-sama, it is unbecoming of a lady to drink so much." The blond paused and grinned foxily, then continued, "Good thing you aren't one."
Gaara sighed when he had to move his head out the way of the sudden flying furniture, this time it was the Hokage's chair. Naruto caught it easily and set it down on the floor before perching in it himself.
He ignored the outraged tirade Tsunade was spouting, instead focusing on his red haired friend.
"So, Gaara, I trust we can cross any of the genin you brought with you as possibly being the snake-pedo? You would know if one of your brats started preying on little boys and girls. Right?" he asked, causing Gaara to smirk at the name he gave the rogue sanin.
"Yes, I personally vouch for all of the genin I brought with me, though that is not to say they won't cause some trouble. That speech you gave them about the proper way to prank when you were last in Suna struck, and they have gleefully been putting it to practice." He told the grinning ANBU.
"That's great! I hope they have been driving you up the wall. Though, before you met me, you already were pretty nuts. Mother wants your blood and all that, super creepy." Naruto shivered in mock horror.
"AND ANOTHER THING, NO ONE AROUND HERE RESPECTS ME PROPERLY! I AM THE HOKAGE, AND DESERVE THE UMOST ~hic~ R-E-S-P-E-C-T FIND OUT WHAT IT MEANS TO ME~E!" Tsunade began to sing the respect song, and both teens winced at her terrible vocals.
"Excuse me, I think this meeting would be more effective if the Hokage was not drunk off her arse, so, after I go ask Shizune-nee-san to escort our esteemed and most respected Hokage home, would you like to join me for a walk?" Naruto had to shout over Tsunade's interesting song choice, and Gaara, who refused to shout, nodded his answer.
After he put his mask back on, Naruto walked over to the door, and without warning, flung it open, causing the woman who was standing there with her ear pressed to it to topple into the room.
"Shizune-san, would you be so kind to escort our inebriated Hokage upstairs to her suite, Kazekage-sama and I have something to discuss, which would be impossible with Tsunade-sama's current… volume." Somehow Naruto's voice sounded deeper, older, and Shizune stared up at him with wide eyes, her face red in embarrassment.
Not waiting for her answer, Kitsune gestured for the red head to follow him out the door.
~~~~In Naruto's Room~~~~
Naruto had showed Gaara his room in the ANBU quarters, and asked him to wait while he changed. Minutes later he walked out of the bathroom in his usual black and orange monstrosity, his ANBU mask and weapons in hand.
Gaara settled on the beige chaise lounge and watched his best friend move around the room, putting the weapons and mask in their proper place. "Naruto..." he started, unsure how to phrase his question. Naruto seemed to read his mind, though, and answered.
"I was in ANBU when you met me. Let me finish then I'll tell you the story." He called from the closet, and the red head nodded, though his friend couldn't see.
After he had put everything away, Naruto plopped down next to the Kazekage and began his tale, starting with his fourth birthday.
Flashback: Eleven Years Ago
October 10th, his birthday, and a day he had long ago learned to fear. The villagers were always crueler on his birthday, and he usually holed up in his apartment, shivering in fear under a blanket. It didn't keep them from coming, but kept them from coming sooner, and, in the now four-year-old's eyes, that was better than nothing.
It was around midnight when they finally pounded on his door, a mob of them, demanding the 'Demon's' extermination. This time the child had a plan, and as they burst into his living room, he swept out the window beside his bed, and headed towards the Hokage Tower. Jiji would protect him.
Tears streamed down his whiskered cheeks as he streaked towards safety, the mob not far behind.
"Stop, Demon, and we'll put you out of our misery!" someone behind him shouted, and the rest roared their approval. Stones began to pelt his back and the area around him, but he kept running.
Somehow, as he ran, he felt more power circulating his body, and something in his head growled. It shocked Naruto, but he kept going, nothing would make him stop just so the people could beat him to death.
"THEY THINK THEY CAN DESTROY ME! I'LL SHOW THOSE PUNY MORTALS!" the voice was terrible and frightening and inside his mind, and Naruto thought a Yamanaka had joined the mob. That was his last thought as a power exploded from his body. He sank into darkness.
~~~~Ten Minutes Later~~~~
Naruto awoke with a start, and was relieved to find he had somehow made it to Jiji's office. The Sandaime was sitting at his desk, staring at him with pity.
"Jiji?" the child whispered, and Sarotobi nodded, and opened his arms so the blond could rush into them, clutching the white cloth and sobbing.
After Naruto's sobs had died down, the Hokage pulled him into his lap. "Naruto, do you know what you did out there?" he asked the four year old, who shook his head, whipping away the tears he had shed. He didn't know why the old man looked relieved.
"You somehow awakened your chakra. That's what knocked you out. Luckily an ANBU got to you before the crowd could. Naruto, your chakra wasn't supposed to be active until you are six, and the council…" he couldn't continue, so the child did.
"They'll call for my death, call me unnatural. What am I gonna do Jiji? The ANBU can't save me from them." the tears started again, and an idea struck the Sandaime, it was risky, but it was their only choice.
"Naruto, do you know how young they start ANBU training?" he murmured, knowing the child did.
Naruto skimmed all of the books saved in his photographic memory, and found what he was looking for. "Usually around five or six in the case of ROOT, and sometimes regular ANBU will take apprentices that are my age or up. But most of the time ANBU is made up of jounin who were powerful enough and wel known enough to have to have an alias when they go out for missions. Such jounin as Hatake Kakashi, Ibiki Morino, Yugao Uzuki, Itachi Uchiha-" Naruto was going to continue, but the Hokage had laced a hand over his mouth, looking down at the child with wide eyes.
"Where did you find out specific names?" the old man demanded, and the child muttered illegibly until the Hokage moved his hand.
"You would be shocked at what information your secretary leaves alone on her desk, Jiji." He said simply, shrugging his thin shoulders.
Sighing, Sarutobi beckoned to the shadows beside the door, and an ANBU moved out of them, his mask that of a weasel. Naruto hopped off of the Sandaime's lap and bowed to the new arrival.
"Uchiha-san. Or would you prefer Weasel-san?" the boy asked, peeking out of his bangs. He stood up straight and stared right into the rotating comas that gave the teenager away.
"Weasel, Uzumaki-san, is what I ask you to call me on the job." The Uchiha answered, grinning behind his mask.
"Weasel, you said you wanted an apprentice, did you not? You even suggested you take on Naruto. I, as Hokage, now grant your request." Sarutobi told the masked boy formally, and smiled when Naruto's eyes widened and he stared at his surrogate grandfather in shock before his new teacher caught his attention.
"Uzumaki-san, in order to join the ranks of ANBU, you need a codename. Do you need time to think about it?" Weasel asked, and Naruto shook his head.
"Kitsune. For some reason, it just seems right." He answered instantly, and the Hokage shifted nervously. Itachi acted like that was exactly what he suspected.
Naruto was taken up to ANBU headquarters, and out of a long wall of masks, picked the fox.
He spent the next two years following his teacher's every order until he earned the right to be called a full-fledged ANBU operative, not finding out until much later that none of the civilians that had chased him that fateful night had made it out alive, nor that the ANBU that had carried him to the Hokage tower had, in fact, arrived after all of them were dead by a mysterious cause. None of them had any injuries.
When he was seven he was told his teacher had betrayed all of Konoha, but he was in that meeting of the council and knew the truth. He told no one, though.
~~~~Three Years Later~~~~
Kitsune stood protectively by the Hokage as the council was in session. He had been to many such meetings, and followed protocol, allowing the council to force him to swear a blood oath that anything he heard here would not be repeated.
The last such meeting he had been to had involved his teacher, thus how he found out that his teachers and surrogate brother's actions were not his own. He held no affection for these pompous fools.
"Sarutobi, it has come to the council's attention that the demon child has reached the age that he can attend the academy. Are you going to allow that monstrosity to poison the minds of our newest generation of ninja?" the head of one of the lesser clans demanded.
The Hokage scowled before answering. "First off, he is not the fox, just its jailor, and second off, yes, I think he has just as much right to try for his hitai-ate as any of the children his age."
The council seemed outraged at his confidant response, but Kitsune tuned out the argument that followed, already execting the outcome.
He and the Hokage had talked about this development not long ago, and had come to an understanding. Naruto Uzumaki would attend the Ninja Academy, but the council would probably set ridiculous limits that none of the other students would have.
As it turned out, that was the actual outcome, and Kitsune would resume his civilian identity to keep up appearances, though the council did not even know he was already an ANBU, the Hokage just didn't tell them the blond was being trained. He would only be allowed to fail twice before being forced to remain a civilian for the rest of his life, and he knew the academy teachers would have orders to fail him.
Too bad he was already an ANBU.
End Flashback
Gaara was silent through the story, but as soon as the blond was done, asked two questions that had been bothering him.
"So, how are you officially a genin now? And was the Uchiha a mission?"
Naruto grinned and reached over to pick up a picture on his bedside table, showing it to his friend. It was of Naruto in mid air, about to jump the brown haired chuunin Gaara had heard the blond call Iruka-sensei.
"Well, no matter how hard I worked, nor how perfect my scores were, I failed the first two times. The council of numbsculls had figured out they couldn't order the teachers to fail me, so they did the next best thing; they bribed my first two teachers. It worked, and they tried the third time, which as the first time I got Iruka-sensei. By that time I had figured out that no matter what I did I wasn't going to officially be a ninja, so I just stopped trying, and chose to do missions over class work. My grades were really low, but, for some strange reason, Iruka-sensei refused the bribe, and actually tried to get me to pass, though I didn't know at the time because I thought he was just another jackass. He didn't know about my limit, and by the time that genin exam came around, I was given a new mission, I was to ferret out the traitor that had infiltrated the Academy." Naruto told the story of Mizuki and Iruka, adding in his thoughts throughout the whole thing.
"And you won't believe how surprised I was when he put his own hitai-ate on my head and told me I had passed." He finished answering Gaara's first question, and used the time that Gaara was thinking it over to call one of the maids employed here to get them some drinks.
"All right, I get that, but that doesn't answer…" Gaara took a sip of his pomegranate juice and didn't finish his statement, but Naruto knew what he was going to say.
"I was getting there. If you would really think about it, I thought I wouldn't pass the Academy, and no one could tell Iruka-sensei who to put on what team, so, no, Sasuke wasn't a mission originally, but I sort of assigned him as a mission to myself. I, of course, couldn't allow him to even try to kill my sensei, but that didn't mean I couldn't help him get stronger, in both body and mind. But when he ran away, it was already the cursed seal thinking for him. I had to kill Orochimaru to destroy it."
"You killed the snake-sanin?" Gaara looked at Naruto in shock, who sighed and explained it like it was easy.
"Well, thanks to Sandaime-sama, he couldn't use his arms, so he was weakened immeasurably, and I got in by killing that idiot Kabuto, then hengeing into him and then nothing was stopping me from waltzing right up to that hebi-teme and slitting his throat. So he's out of the way. I don't want anyone to know because he was a kage, so that's why Tsunade-baa-chan thinks he's on his way here, and why I asked if one of your brats could be him. All for show."
Gaara raised a non-existing eyebrow, but didn't say anything more on that subject, instead focusing on something that was not right. "I'm surprised you haven't dragged me to Ichiraku's for ramen."
Naruto rubbed the back of his head and smiled sheepishly. "Well, officially, Naruto Uzumaki is out of town on a solo mission, so I can't be seen walking around town, now can I?" Garra was going to answer when he was interrupted by knocking on the door.
"Kitsune-taicho, may I come in." the voice was strangely familiar to the Kazekage, and Naruto jumped of the bed.
"Kuso." He cursed, and Gaara asked who it was. "Right now he's known as Inu, he's on my team, but you know him better as Kakashi."
Wow, suddenly this story is getting a lot of story alerts. Why is everyone paying attention to it now? Don't worry, people, I'll continue, and there will be action in the next chapter… I think. I don't know, I'm just winging it, this story is written off the top of my head. (shrug) Remember, reviews make the world go 'round! Oh, and before I forget, you'll find out more about how Kyuubi figures into Naruto's training... eventually.