I don't own Naruto

Naruto woke up under the tree that he now calls home to find the clearing he usually trained in filled with animals of all kind. He immediately recognized the tigers that he met the first day he started to live here, but there were also bears, lions, tortoises, and wolves. They were all just lying there like they had been sleeping there the whole night, almost like they were keeping watch.

'What is going on here, why are all these animals here?' Naruto questioned.

'They felt your distress and anguish last night, since you live in the forest they see you as one of their own and feel the need to protect you if you need it, as they would for any of the animals in this forest.' Kurama explained being more intune with animal behavior.

'That's… I don't know how to explain it. I've never had anyone do this for me. It's surreal.' Naruto thought in awe. 'They treat me better than anyone in the village and I don't even know any of them. Is this what having friends is like? To always have someone there for you no matter what?'

'I wouldn't know kit. I have never had a friend.' Kurama replied.

'Well… I guess I will have to be your first friend.' Naruto thought back with smirk.

'I… I don't know how to respond to that. You would agree to be my friend even though I am a demon that nearly destroyed your village and basically ruined your life?' Kurama thought flabbergasted.

'Well I don't believe all demons are evil, nor are all angels good, it is all a matter of perspective. You have been told for so long that you are evil that you have just accepted that you are evil, and yet what is evil? Just a word that defines someones opinion. What the masses of people think is evil may be different from your definition of evil. It's just a word, nothing more.' Naruto thought, 'if you were truly evil you wouldn't have agreed to help me and would have just let me go on my way as an idiot, nor would you have told me your name, you seem to hold your name in high regard and for you to give me your name must have been a big deal. You destroying this village does not matter to me, I hold no love for this village, but there is something keeping me here, like something great will happen in my life if I stay here, but I wouldn't risk my life for this place if it came down to it. And you haven't ruined my life at all, we are both victims here, so I would be honored to be your friend.'

'Wow… When did you become a philosopher kit?' Kurama thought sarcastically.

'Don't expect anything like that to come back for awhile, I don't like giving speeches.'

Naruto walked out of the shelter of the roots and made his way into the clearing. When he started to walk past the sleeping animals they started to rouse and all turned to look at Naruto.

"Thank you all for your support, I appreciate it. I have never had anyone do this for me before so this is a very big moment for me. I promise that if any of you need my help at anytime I will come as soon as possible to assist you in anything you need. Thank you." And with that all the animals bowed their heads in acknowledgment and started to make their way out of the clearing.

'I guess I should go get ready for training and missions that I will be getting today.' Naruto thought as he made his way to a stream close by. He quickly took a bath and unsealed some clothes, that looked identical to what he always wore, and put them on before making his way towards training ground 13.

-Training ground 13-

Naruto walked into the clearing of training ground 13 and found that he was the first one to arrive. He decided to sit under a large tree and wait for his sensei to arrive.

A few minutes later Kurenai showed up to find her student meditating underneath a tree on the far side of the clearing. She took this time to really examine him. His black leather coat covered everything and during the night would basically make him invisible to anyone that couldn't see chakra. The hood covered his face so no one could see his face adding a mysterious flair to him.

During his fight with Hana yesterday she had seen that he also wears all black underneath the coat, it seems he really doesn't like to stand out.

What really intrigued her though was that he had seals in his coat. She had seen when he had unsealed his saber claws and doubted that anyone would willingly help Naruto with seals, let alone draw some on his coat. Which meant that he had to draw those seals on his own, so he was studying fuuinjutsu and was at least adept at it.

Thinking back to the fight with Hana he showed that he was much better than the reports from his academy told. He was supposed to be the dead last. He was marked as worst in taijutsu, ninjutsu, and genjutsu. He was the best when it came to trap making and stealth but that was it. He hardly paid attention in class and spent most of his time in the corner of the class away from everyone.

So unless he was hiding his real skill from everyone during his academy days, which was entirely possible, then he learned incredibly quickly during the 1 week break between graduation and team assignments. This apprenticeship would be very interesting.

When she was done examining her student she began to make her way over to him. After the first few steps Naruto's eyes snapped open and looked towards Kurenai. Seeing who it was he immediately relaxed and stood up from his meditation.

"Good morning Kurenai-sensei, are we going to start with missions or will we be training first?" Naruto asked as he made his way over to his sensei.

"We will start with missions, we don't want to get stuck with the bad missions, plus after your fight with Hana yesterday I feel like you're doing pretty well in your training, being able to beat a chunin in combat is very impressive for a green genin." Kurenai praised.

"I wouldn't really call that a fight, nor would I have beaten her if she was clear headed. I used her emotions against her, she also couldn't fight at her full potential because she had to be wary of traps that I may have set up." Naruto responded.

"That may be but you were still able to hold your own against a much stronger opponent which is very much praiseworthy."

'Don't sell yourself short kit, she may have not been clear in the head and was wary of your traps but to lure your opponent into that fighting situation requires a lot of patience and skill. You also did not reveal all of your skills, you could have used some of the jutsu you learned and released your resistance seals. While you are not yet ready to fight higher caliber ninja, if you two were to have both fought at full strength, without using my chakra, it would have been a very hard fought battle.' Kurama added.

'I guess.'

-Hokage tower-

"Oh welcome Kurenai-san, Naruto-kun. What can I do for you?" Sarutobi asked as they walked into the mission room.

"Hokage-sama, I didn't know you would be handing out missions today." Kurenai stated quite surprised that the Hokage was handing out missions. He usually left that to chunin, usually teachers during the school break.

"Ohoho, I like to give out the missions on the first day that the genin teams are together. So what can I get you?" Sarutobi replied.

"Well, uh, what do you have?" Kurenai asked feeling a little nervous getting her missions straight from the Hokage the first day of having a student.

"Well let's see shall we. We have walking the Inuzuka's dogs, painting the fences along the southeast park, cleaning up the southwest park, and catching Tora. Those are all the missions we have at the moment. Some more should come in later, but since you are here what would you like?"

Before Kurenai could answer Naruto decided to speak up. "We'll take all of them."

Kurenai snapped her head towards Naruto and stared at him incredulously, "Naruto, if we were take all those missions it would take us all day to finish them, we wouldn''t have anytime to train."

"I'll just use Kage Bunshin to do the jobs sensei. I need the money from these missions. I no longer get an allowance from the village now that I am a ninja, I have to support myself financially." Naruto explained to his sensei.

"Well… Are you sure you want to catch Tora. That cat is hellish for a whole genin squad. You being on your own will make that even harder." Kurenai tried to get him to lessen the load a bit.

"I'm good with animals." Naruto responded while walking out of the office with the papers for the missions.

-Inuzuka compound-

Naruto decided to leave his clones to painting the fences and cleaning up the park. He himself would walk the Inuzuka dogs and then go find Tora.

"So you are the one that will be walking our dogs today?" Naruto heard from behind him.

Naruto turned around to find himself looking at the head of the Inuzuka clan.

Tsume was the epitome of a tomboy. She had short shaggy brown hair and the ever present fang tattoos and the slitted eyes that are shared by all Inuzuka members, except Hana. She wore a green jounin flak jacket and wears a black tracksuit underneath.

"Yes, that would be me." Naruto answered.

"Well, I don't know how you plan on walking our dogs as one guy, unless your sensei decides to help you out a bit." Tsume responded looking over towards Kurenai.

"That won't be necessary," Naruto states before Kurenai can get a word in. Naruto then makes a hand seal that is quickly becoming one of his favorites and creates three clones to help him walk the dogs.

"Well, aren't you just full of surprises." Tsume states looking at the clones, she decides to poke one to see if it really was corporeal. When she felt resistance, instead of her hand phasing through the body, she was honestly surprised that a genin knew such a high level technique, but she had heard rumors of a genin that learned the Kage Bunshin, she just never knew who. "I guess you won't have any problems handling this on your own then. Just take them up to the northwestern park, walk them around it and bring them back, they will probably be a bit rowdy and tough to handle but I think you should be able to handle them."

"Very well, I'll be back in about an hour." Naruto said as he took the leashes for the dogs and divided them amongst his clones and started walking towards the northwestern park.

"He seems like a very hardworking young man. It seems you have a very good student on your hands Kurenai, his work ethic alone would have made him go far in our career, with proper guidance he could become a force to be reckoned with in the future." Tsume said as she watched Naruto leave this the dogs.

"Yea, but I almost feel like he is working too hard. On top of this mission he also took cleaning the southwestern park and painting the fences at the southeastern park. He also decided that he will be catching Tora, though he wanted to do that himself so he will be doing that after he gets done walking your dogs." Kurenai stated, worried for her student. "Taking up so much responsibility all at once is not good, someone his age should never have this much responsibility."

"While that is true, you have to remember who you are talking about. This kid has gone through things that would break even Ibiki, he has responsibilities that no one his age should have, he probably feels like he can handle this and he probably needs the money now that he is a ninja. The civilian council was already very irritable about giving that child any of the tax money that they collect from their businesses. It took the Hokage threatening them with illegally withholding money from a Konoha citizen to get them to comply." Tsume explained. "Even after all that they only gave him the bare minimum and would 'donate' some of his allowance to the companies that the civilians owned."

"I guess that would explain why he is taking so many missions at once, but that is still a lot to do for a genin. If he needs help why wouldn't he just ask me for it? That's why I am here in the first place." Kurenai said trying to find out a way to help her student.

"He has been alone all his life Kurenai, he doesn't trust people. He has had to do everything on his own for his entire life, he isn't going to change just because there is someone is his life that he can trust. He doesn't even know if he can trust you yet, he doesn't know you, to him you are just another person in this village that may or may not hold a grudge against him for his tenant." Tsume continued to explain. "Just give him some time and he will come around. Show him that he can trust you and you will be able to break into his shell."

"I guess, that is all I can do. Thank you Tsume, now I have to go catch up with him and see if I can start getting him to open up." Kurenai said as she started to jog after her student.

-1 hour later-

During the walk Naruto got to know the dogs of the Inuzuka a lot better. They are very similar to the animals of the Forest of Death, they can pick up on your mood and are very protective about their family. Naruto made it a point to quickly integrate himself into their family so that walking them would be less of a hassle.

He proved himself as being good with animals when the dogs accepted him about halfway through the walk. The dogs became noticeably less rowdy and attempted to drag Naruto and his clones less and less. Eventually they would just go where Naruto wanted them to. They would occasionally venture off on their own, curiosity getting the better of them, but they would always come right back. After a while Naruto dispelled his clones and let the leashes go, the dogs never made a move to run.

When it was time to return the dogs to the kennels Naruto ran into team 10 cleaning said kennels. They looked less than pleased about the chores that they had to complete and Asuma was just standing on the side thanking Kami that he did not have to do these chores, just supervise.

"Troublesome" Shikamaru said as he saw the dogs coming.

"Well my little genin, it seems as though you didn't clean the kennels in time. Hopefully next time you will work a bit harder to get the job done on time." Asuma scolded as he too saw the dogs returning from their walk.

"Maybe if you had helped us we would have gotten done on time Asuma-sensei!" Ino yelled as she made her way out of the pen she was cleaning, completely covered in filth.

"Now Ino, these missions are to help you build a sense of responsibility as new genin and as a team." Asuma explained.

"You are also part of the team Asuma-sensei!" Ino retorted.

"I already have a sense of responsibility, my job is to foster that sense in you guys so that you become leader material and can then be promoted through the ranks." Asuma explained taking a drag on his cigarette.

"Asuma put that out, you're going to kill yourself with that." Kurenai scolded as she came walking up to the team.

"I'll die on a mission long before I die from smoking Kurenai, are you that worried about me sweety?" Asuma replied.

"Save flirting with each other for later, I doubt your teams want to hear it." Naruto stated as he strolled up with the dogs in tow.

Both jounin blushed in embarrassment and looked away sheepishly. At that moment Tsume decided to come out and was quite surprised at what she was looking at.

Naruto had all the dogs surrounding him, none had their leashes on and weren't running. They also seemed to really like Naruto, if the way that they constantly rubbed against his leg was any clue.

"Damn kid, you got the pups to like you in no time flat, that's quite impressive." Tsume praised, "the pups don't take a liking to just anyone, you have to be family for them to accept you."

"I'm just good with animals, that's all." Naruto responded as he led the dogs to the kennels. When the dogs were going into their kennels they all turned back to look at Naruto as if asking if he was going to come back.

"Don't worry guys, I'll come back and walk you again sometime. In the meantime be good to anyone who walks you okay, but give them a bit of a challenge, can't make stuff too easy on them, ne?" Naruto smirked.

The Inuzuka dogs all barked in agreement and went into their kennels, most of which were clean.

"Tsume, if you ever need someone to walk your dogs again just let me know, I'll also clean out the kennels if you need that done as well." Naruto declared as he turned away from the dogs to look at Tsume.

Tsume was quite taken by this young man. Most people didn't like walking the dogs and no one liked to clean the kennels, and yet here is a young man who volunteered to do both if the need ever arose.

"At least we won't have to clean the kennels ever again." Chouji spoke up, for once not eating since even he didn't want to eat after what he just had to clean.

"You didn't even completely clean the kennels, you got through about half of them in the time it took Naruto to walk the dogs, which is about an hour. You guys need to pick up the pace if you ever want to get passed these chores." Asuma scolded his team.

"Kurenai-sensei, it's time we go find Tora, then after that we could get in some training." Naruto said as he started to walk towards the forest surrounding Konoha.

"Ouch, you guys got stuck with Tora. Good luck with that." Asuma said as he watched the blonde walk away.

"He actually requested it. I tried to get him out of it but he was adamant about taking the mission, said he was good with animals and that he would be able to catch Tora." Kurenai responded as she shook her head, "guess he'll just have to learn the hard way." Kurenai then walked after her student.

-Outskirts of Konoha-

Naruto was walking through the forests outside the walls of Konoha at a leisurely pace. He knew that he would come upon Tora eventually so he was in no real rush, he learned that patience was rewarded handsomely from all his pranks and stakeouts that he did.

As he was walking through the forest he came upon a family of foxes. There were 2 adults and 2 kits, and they just seemed to be enjoying the day.

All of a sudden a kunai cut through the air and made it's way towards the family of foxes. Thinking fast Naruto jumped in front of the foxes and unsealed his saber claws. He deflected the kunai into the ground and glared at where the kunai came from.

"So the demon is protecting his own kind. How sweet." Came a voice as a figure could be made out coming out of the bushes.

When the figure was visible you could easily tell it was a genin ninja, not a green genin but a genin nonetheless. And for him to be a genin and know about the Kyuubi then he had to be a really old genin, which also meant that he had to be a horrible ninja.

"I suggest you leave before you get yourself in way over your head." Naruto warned, slipping into his taijutsu stance.

"Oh, so the fox is defensive about his brethren, well I guess I get to kill more than I bargained for on this hunt." The genin sneered as he too slipped into the academy taijutsu stance.

"So be it," and with those words Naruto rocketed off towards the genin at high speeds.

The opposing genin was caught off by the speed of his opponent and was unable to block the first blow to his stomach. The saber claws cut into his stomach and left a deep gash that would surely hinder further movement and would eventually knock the boy out in a minute if he didn't stop the bleeding.

"You little pest!" The boy bellowed as he took a wild swing towards Naruto.

Naruto just brought up a saber claw in defense and the boy punched straight into the edge of the claw cutting deep into his fingers, yet luckily not severing them.

"Ahhh!" The boy screamed, recoiling while holding his wounded hand and slightly bent over due to the pain in his stomach.

Naruto started to walk towards the boy. Knowing the he could do nothing, the boy started to back away.

"No no, have mercy! Please!" The boy shouted frantically backpedalling. He eventually stepped on the kunai he had thrown earlier and lost his balance falling on his back.

"You will lose consciousness in a few seconds. If I ever find you hunting foxes again, I will end you, are we clear?" Naruto threatened.

The boy frantically nodded his head before his vision started to fade. After a few seconds he lost consciousness and fell limp on the ground.

Naruto sighed and created a clone to take the boy to the hospital, it wouldn't do for him to die for something as petty as this.

Naruto turned towards the foxes and analyzed them. They all seemed to be looking at him as if giving him a silent thank you. He couldn't tell but that's what it felt like.

"If you guys want to live in safety I suggest you either leave Konoha or go to the Forest of Death. No one ever goes in there without good reason and all the animals in there take care of each other like a family." Naruto told the foxes hoping they would understand him. He felt a bit crazy talking to animals as if they could understand him, but when he saw the foxes nod and take off towards training ground 44 he knew that they understood him.

"Well, time to go find Tora." Naruto whispered to himself as he began to walk through the forest once again.

So decided to post this now. I wanted to post it as a Christmas gift but I had to make a few edits here and there and also needed my sleep so it came out late.

Hope you all had a good Christmas and to anyone that doesn't celebrate Christmas then I hope you had a happy... whatever you celebrate/don't celebrate.

I'm still interested in knowing what you guys want to see more of so hit me with some reviews about what you want, and if you are going to give me constructive criticism don't hold back.

~Dyna