I do not own Naruto

Iruka was worried. After a week of him not turning up to his lesson he went over to Naruto's house. There was a broken down door and no one had slept in the bed for a while. Panicking he asked the Hokage what was happening. No one could find him, when they tried to track him; the rain had washed away the tail. ANBU search everywhere for him. After a month of search Iruka was fearing the worst. Naruto hadn't been home for a month, to his lessons or even Ichiraku Ramen bar. The worst part to his disappearance was that no one really cared. Hokage, Iruka, Hinata, Teuchi and Ayama were the ones that truly cared. Iruka noticed that Sasuke missed him, but only due to the fact that now Naruto was missing he had to sit next to some fan-girls. It got so bad that someone was sent to the hospital with a broken nose because she refused not to move. Praying that Naruto would turn up before class started, he started to get the correct lesson equipment out. With one minute to spare Naruto came in and started to head to the back of the class at the empty seat. Only a few people seemed to notice or care.
"Naruto nice of you to turn up, you want to tell us were you've been?" Iruka asked checking his emotion state.
Naruto looked at Iruka smiled and replied "Nope". However what Iruka saw troubled him completely.
What not many people know that some teachers at the academy have special training to check their students emotional state. If they felt that they couldn't handle anything they would help. Iruka was one of these specialists and in Naruto's eyes he noticed that there was pain.

Over the course of the next week Naruto's disappearance was the talk of the academy. Naruto refused flat out to tell anyone where he was but promised it wouldn't happen again. Threats, bribes nothing worked. Some fan-girls thought that he was trying to act cool like Sasuke. During lessons Iruka noticed that Naruto was working hard and studying, the only problem was he could tell it was nothing to do with this lesson. Most teachers felt as long as the demon brat wasn't distracting the other students, then this was fine. The other thing Iruka noticed was that Naruto had a locket on and some new gloves. The locket was a mystery, he seemed highly protective of it wouldn't let anyone touch it or look at it. Gossip went that it was Naruto and Sakura inside it. He had also turned the orange down a bit. It was still there but it was darker less noticeable. Iruka knew that Naruto was hiding behind a mask of happiness, but what could he do about it. If he made attention to it someone else might take advantage of it.
All in all he acted like the old Naruto; the pranks were better than ever, he still blurted out random stuff and behaved like the fool. If he was deceiving people and acting as dead last Iruka felt that he shouldn't tell anyone, everyone has secrets.
Over the reminder of the academy years, Naruto tried to sit by himself; if he couldn't then he sat next to Shino or Hinata. He figured they wouldn't talk to him much or try to boss him around. Around a year after he went missing he turned up with cuts over his body in the morning and by lunch they were missing. They weren't that noticeable but once someone found out then everyone started to pick up on them. Most people couldn't care less was happened to him, but that didn't stop them from talking about it. The two ideas that were floating around were that he was cutting himself, or that they were fake and that why they were missing. Both ideas pointed to Naruto wanted attention so they gave him none. When people asked him about them he came up with bad reasons, like paper cuts, training accidence, he cut himself on a ramen lid or even that he fought some ninjas off. The greatest surprise Naruto had was when Hinata offered some healing cream to him. Iruka could have sworn he saw a real smile, not the fake some he showed.

On the 10 of October the village celebrated the death of the fox, and after the children left they played their favour came. Fox hunting. Somehow they never caught naruto. When they broke into his house it was empty. What he did was sealed everything into a scroll then stayed at his father's house for the night. This annoyed everyone hunting him. Soon there was a prize reward for the person that found out where he went. He always lost them. When someone was following him he found new ways to escape and hid. Best part was this was training to avoid enemies so he was getting stronger due to their hate. When the Sandaime tried to track him using his Tomegan no justu (that glass ball he uses to track people) he failed. What no one knew was that Minato didn't want any perverts mainly Jiraiya to use that justu on his wife, so he made a seal that prevent it. Luckily for Naruto there was a spare lying round in Minatos vault so naruto took it

Over the time period Naruto learnt a lot by himself. At the age of 12 he had learnt the basic Namikaze taijutsu. He had learnt how fight like an Uzumaki, learn Uzumaki sword style in the vault now only lacking experience. He was on step two of the Rasengan, struggling to combine rotation and power. He was able to walk up trees. He was a good sealer, he could create a good range of seals, from storage seals to explosion tags to binding seals. He also found that forging was great fun and make all his own shuriken. He had made some fingerless gloves and place a storage seal on them so he could get shurikens out quickly. He hadn't come up with a name for his sword yet, but he found a phrase his father said to place on sword. Hi no kage wa sate o terasu (the fire's shadow illuminates the village). He had in his last year found a scroll in the vault for shadow clones. Which he mastered in a day.

Emotional he had changed. For a year he thought that he would stay away from people figuring that who would want to talk or help the demon brat. When Hinata gave him that cream, it took all his skill not to hug her. That was the first time someone other than Iruka or the old man had given him something and it wasn't deadly, poisoned or explosive. He had given up on finding love, being nice is one thing but loving the demon brat is another. His crush for Sakura died the same day she called him an unloved parentless monster just because he beat Sasuke at throwing Kunai .

BTW there might be bit of Kiba, Kakashi Sakura and Sasuke, but I'll try not to bash for the sake of bashing. If there is bashing there will be a reason for it.
just to explain remember in the manga how thanks to Iruka Naruto never saw himself as the demon, that hasn't happen so atm he believes that he is the demon. Also at this point he hasn't talked to the Kyubi yet.
Thanks for reading please review.