Naruto was confused, to say the very least. There was hardly ever anyone at his apartment, let alone at 7am, like his alarm clock said. With a small groan, Naruto swung himself out of bed and headed towards his door, again hearing a loud knocking.
Irritated at being awoken at such an early time, Naruto yelled out, "I'm coming, just stop knocking already!" Closing the distance to his front door in a sleepy haze, Naruto opened the door, only to be surprised by who it was.
"Iruka-sensei? Umm, why are you here?" Naruto was beyond confused, as he tried to clear his sleep clogged mind.
Iruka seemed a little embarrassed to be at Naruto's, especially so soon after Naruto had all but screamed in his face the day before, "Well Naruto I came here to tell you that you are going to need to be at the Hokage's office in 2 hours for a meeting."
Naruto was confused, "A- a meeting about what?" Naruto was very concerned about what it could be. 'Do- do they know what I did?'
***Flash back***
Naruto was glad to finally lay back and think, and look up at the stars above his head. He was almost drifting off to sleep, before he heard someone jump down beside him. Startled by the sound, Naruto jumped up to his feet, and whirled to face the newcomer, only to see that it was his sensei, Mizuki.
"Umm, Mizuki-sensei, why are you here?" Naruto was curious to find out why Mizuki was just all of a sudden showing up at his apartment, especially since it was very late at night as well. 'This is weird, Mizuki-sensei has never really talked to me before.'
Mizuki gave a Naruto a wide smile, "Well Naruto, I came with great news! After talking it over with Iruka, we decided that you did deserve another shot at passing the exams! I had a test of your abilities set up. All you have to do, is sneak into the Hokage's residence, and steal a scroll that is in the Hokage's private study, and bring it to the field where we used to do survival exercises."
Naruto beamed a smile at Mizuki, and outwardly he said, "Sure Mizuki-sensei, I can do that!" But as he tried to play the part of his usual self, inwardly he was not fooled by Mizuki's supposed "test." It all seemed too suspicious, even to Naruto. 'There is no way that I would be being informed about some test at this time of the night.'
Mizuki's smile widened, "Good Naruto, but when you have the scroll, you will have to also learn one jutsu from the scroll to completely pass the test. If you cannot demonstrate to me that you have learned something, I'm sorry, but I would have to fail you. Now, I want you to begin right away, the security is set up, but just remember, don't get caught! Now good luck!"
And just like that Mizuki was gone, and Naruto was left trying to decide what he should do. 'On one hand, if Mizuki is lying about this, why would he be? And is he is lying, I should tell Hokage-Jiji! But if I do that, and the test is real, I might have wasted too much time to actually steal the scroll!'
With a weighing of the pros and cons, Naruto finally decided that his best option was to attempt to steal the scroll unnoticed, and hope that the test was real.
***45 Minutes Later***
It was simple enough to steal the scroll unnoticed, there was only 1 ANBU that was stationed to guard the room where the scroll had been, and only 2 ANBU outside the Hokage residence. They had been easy enough to sneak by, as they had a very simple and routine pattern that they used to patrol the perimeter of the building.
Though it was not only his stealth skills that Naruto used to stage an elaborate plan to hopefully steal the scroll. There was one shop in Konoha that always let him in and sold him things for a fair price, Konoha's House of Debauchery. They mostly sold cheap fake magic tricks to civilians, but there a few things in the store that had caught Naruto's eye the first time he went into the shop, and that he always went back to buy.
It was a simple enough matter to utilize the gap that was left between patrols, and sneak into the building. After moving through the building to the office, Naruto hung outside the doorway so that the ANBU had not noticed him, and to distract them to leave the office, Naruto pulled his one of his best friends out of a pouch sewed into his pants, a firecracker. Made and sold at the Konoha House of Debauchery.
Sending chakra into the seal to ignite the timer that would in turn set off the firework, Naruto tossed it down the hallway and through an open doorway that was nearly 20 feet away. Tucking himself behind a large potted plant, Naruto counted to 5, and heard the firecracker go off.
Known as what was called a "nine bang," the firecracker let off 9 loud auditory booms and bright flashes. Usually Naruto used them to either escape from pursuit after a prank, but this was a special occasion, so Naruto used the expensive firework.
It performed it's job quite well, as the ANBU that was inside of the office let out a cry as he was severally deafened and blinded by the exceptionally loud firecracker. It was at that moment that there was another, much larger explosion outside of the building as well, a timed explosive that Naruto had set to 3 minutes to give him time to get inside of the building and set up the 9 bang.
Knowing that one of the ANBU that was outside would go check out the explosion outside, and another would have to go inside to check on what was going on with the nine bang, Naruto began to move fast. He broke into a sprint, and ran inside of the Hokage's study, to find the ANBU member that was inside was moving around hazily as he tried to get his bearings.
Leaving the ANBU no time to regain his senses, Naruto moved over to where the scroll that Mizuki had described was set up on a stand in the corner of the room, and grabbed the large scroll before pulling out a green cord from his pockets and using it to strap the scroll to his back.
Before the ANBU member who was outside reached the office, Naruto was already gone, and the ANBU member that had been hit by the nine bang had not seen nor heard anything at all.
A safe distance away from the Hokage's Residence, Naruto unslung the scroll from his back and set it down in front of him, Mizuki's suspicious test just seemed too weird to Naruto, so before he decided to take the scroll to Mizuki, Naruto wanted to get a good look at whatever was inside.
It took only a few seconds to read 'Scroll of Seals' and only a few more to read 'Do Not Attempt To Use Any Jutsu Held Within This Scroll.' Now Naruto may not be the brightest person in the world, but he was by no means stupid. He had seen through Mizuki's test, and he sure as hell knew that what he had just done was a crime, and that Mizuki had to have other reasons for having Naruto take the scroll to him.
But it was for that reason that Naruto knew he could not take the scroll to Mizuki. But he could not come clean about it to anyone else either, and try to have Mizuki arrested, because what proof was there?
If Naruto went to even the Hokage with the scroll, and tried to tell them that Mizuki had made him steal the scroll, what proof, or reason to believe him would there be? This left Naruto with two real options. One, take the scroll and sneak back into the Hokage's Residence and try to leave it there so that if he got caught, at least he would have returned it. Or the second option, that a little voice in Naruto's head told him to do, was to keep the scroll.
Who would ever even suspect that Naruto would steal such a scroll? 'If I keep the scroll, and hide it well enough that no one will find it, how could I possibly get in trouble? And Mizuki has to have a reason for wanting the scroll, so maybe I should just keep it myself?'
Naruto snuck back to his apartment, avoiding anyone and everyone to make sure that no one saw that he had a giant scroll strapped to his back. It was not difficult to remain unseen at this time of the night, there were few people about, and any ninja that went by never spared so much as a glance at the orange clad troublemaker.
Upon returning home back to his apartment, Naruto knew he had to find somewhere to hide the scroll incase Mizuki tried to steal it from him, because Mizuki would know that Naruto had the scroll. But Naruto knew that Mizuki could not risk telling anyone he knew that he has the scroll, because that would uncover his own involvement, not to mention he would not get the scroll.
Looking at the giant scroll, Naruto knew it would be next to impossible to hide such a large thing anywhere in his apartment. So Naruto made a decision, pulling out nearly half a dozen pieces of paper, Naruto opened the scroll and began to copy everything down. When he was done, he would destroy the original scroll and instead hide his copies of everything throughout his apartment.
***Present Time***
"It's going to be really important Naruto, so make sure you are on time. I know that you may be really sad about not passing the academy test, but I have found another way for you to become a ninja of Konoha Naruto. Just make sure you are there in two hours Naruto, you are going to meet your future sensei that will train you to become a ninja."
With that, Iruka left in a hurry, leaving a partially stunned and relieved Naruto standing in his doorway staring at the space where Iruka had been, 'Another way to become a ninja? That is what Mizuki had said, but Iruka-sensei said that I was going to meet my sensei? And I don't think that Iruka-sensei would lie to me.'
Naruto closed the door and walked towards his bathroom. If he really was going to go meet the Hokage and his new sensei, a shower was definitely in order. No sense in leaving a bad first impression on whoever it was that was going to be his sensei.
And if he was going to be his sensei, Naruto knew that this was a special case. Naruto had heard about Rock Lee, a student a year ahead of him that couldn't use chakra and had become a ninja without passing the graduation test because he had been sponsored by a jounin named Maito Gai.
'This must mean that I am being sponsored by someone too. I can't believe that someone is actually taking time and putting their name on the line to sponsor me, most people won't ever even talk to me.'
With that less than cheerful thought, Naruto began to get ready for the meeting, and as he set aside clothes to wear, Naruto decided to forgo the usual jumpsuit, and instead pulled out black pants a black tee shirt instead. Maybe since he was becoming a ninja, some change was in order as well.
Digging around further in his closet, Naruto pulled out an old grey vest that was similar to the Konoha chuunin vest. Looking at the new outfit, Naruto felt that it was missing something. Not sure what could be missing, Naruto put the thought aside as he instead headed into the shower, sighing blissfully as the hot water hit his body.
Ruefully, he left the shower and put on his new outfit, and looked in the mirror to see if he could figure out what was missing. Realizing it immediately, Naruto realized that he had nothing on his forehead, his usual goggles were missing and for the first time his hair was unrestricted. 'I kind of look a lot older with my bangs just slightly in my eyes.'
Looking over the rest of the outfit, Naruto felt that the black and grey was too drab and dull, and dug further into his closet, trying to find something to add a little something to the wardrobe change. Finding what he was looking for after only a few more minutes, Naruto found a red sash that the Hokage had given him to cheer him up after he had failed the academy for the third time, and looped it around his waist.
Looking at himself one last time, Naruto found himself satisfied with his improvised wardrobe change, and taking a second to straighten out the sash, Naruto checked his clock. 'Has it really already been 45 minutes since Iruka got here? I might as well look at some of things that I copied from the Scroll of Seals before I go to the meeting.'
Pulling out a piece of paper that was hidden inside of an old academy textbook, Naruto looked at the first page of information that had been copied down form the scroll of seals. When Naruto had copied everything down, he was in such a hurry that he had not really thought about anything he had seen, instead opting to quickly copy it all down.
Looking at the paper, Naruto found instructions to learn the Shadow Clone Jutsu. Reading a little bit further, Naruto found a warning saying that it was dangerous to try to perform the Shadow Clone Jutsu unless you had a lot of chakra. Reading a little bit further, Naruto found a note stating that the Shadow Clones had a tactical use for reconnaissance due to anything that the Shadow Clone does or sees is transferred back to the caster upon the dispelling of the shadow clone.
Throwing caution to the wind, Naruto decided that it would be worth it to learn the Shadow Clone Jutsu, since he could never do the regular Clone Jutsu. Seeing the hand signs that were required, Naruto got to work. Time flew by as Naruto worked away at the Shadow Clone Jutsu, and as over an hour and a half went by, Naruto didn't even notice.
Author's Note
So sorry for those that want a new chapter for one of my other stories, but I will write what I feel like when I am hit by inspiration, and I am still in a planning stage for where I want to go with Drop Your Mask, and I am actually making a new story that will basically be a revamped version of Konoha's Swordsman that has the essence of Konoha's Swordsman, but starts from a different beginning. I actually have two more chapters of Apprenticed to a Shadow already written and I will be posting them over the next few days, probably on Friday and Sunday.