Still quite far away from Konoha

As Kyuubi and Naruto closed on Konoha, Naruto was starting to become suspicious that Akako had deliberately skipped any towns that had been along the way. He felt bad for doubting her at this point, because She had been nothing but helpful so far. None-the-less he still couldn't quite completely trust her… could he?

"Hey Naruto how do you think your friends will react once they see you?" Akako asked, neatly breaking Naruto's line of thought in the process.

"Well I suppose that everyone will be surprised but, hopefully they see that I'm still the same person. The Kyuubi grinned suddenly and turned to Naruto "What do you think they would do if they saw you as you are now?" she asked while admiring the current view.

Well like I said I hope that they would… you're talking about how I'm dressed now aren't you. Akako's grin widened "Why yes, yes I am. So answer my question."

"Well I don't know I've never had anything like this pop up before. Naruto said. "Anyway what are you going to do once we get back?

"You know kid; if I didn't know better, I'd say that you're avoiding answering my question." Akako smirked, privately touched by his concern.

"I am not, I just want to know." Naruto protested

"Fine" she said a bit put off, losing all humor her face held a second ago. "I was just going to dismiss myself"

"Wait, what? What do you mean?" Naruto asked

"Naruto remember the whole I summoned myself thing? Well, in case you don't, I summoned myself and once we got closer to town I was just going to dismiss myself. That way you can get in easier."

Naruto didn't like how that sounded. He had quite unexpectedly, grown to like the Kyuubi. "How could I summon you again, if I wanted to?"

Though she was surprised by the question, she didn't let it show. "And why, exactly, would you want to be able to summon me?" she practically sighed not daring to hope for much.

"I don't know really, I mean it would really be a shame never to see you again." Naruto not noticing the slight blush on Akako's cheeks carried on. "It seems to me that you need a break from being inside some dark, wet cell inside me. Some time out of that seal is good for both our health. Also you look happy out here, and I'd like my friend to be happy.

Akako couldn't control it anymore, and a torrent of tears came out unchecked. She didn't expect anyone to be nice to her, especially not this kid. She had already ruined his life; killing his parents, making him an orphan. Making his own village hate him, and try and kill him periodically. It was just too much to be forgiven for, and yet here he stood offering a hand of friendship.

Naruto noticing, her stop he looked back and saw that her face was stained with tears. He didn't know exactly why she was crying, but he never felt right seeing someone cry. "Akako what's the matter. Is it something I said? I'm sorry if it was, I didn't mean to offend you, is there anything I can do to make it up to you?"

"No Naruto" she said between sobs. "I just didn't expect that, I was never shown such kindness before, and it was just… just unexpected is all." she was starting to gain control again, but she still had the occasional sniffle.

"Are you sure" Naruto asked, a little unsure, and still looking doubtful.

"Yeah Naruto I'm fine" she said now fully in control over her emotions again. "Alright, if you want to summon me, I'll need you to sign this; also you will be able to summon other foxes if you want." She said as she poofed a scroll into existence.

"Alright!" Naruto exclaimed, forgetting the emotional scene of a moment before in his excitement. "Where do I sign?" The Kyuubi could only smile a bit at his enthusiasm, seeing as she wouldn't actually have time to teach him how to use it.…

Further away out of sight

Kakashi sat in waiting spying on the now red haired ninja in front of him, seeing what this child's next move was. He knew that this was Naruto, if only from the way he acted so far. He was also following his scent. Seriously he could just smell the ramen on that boy no matter the situation. He shook his head a bit as he sat thinking to himself. He could not, however, tell who the person was next to him. She smelled a lot like Naruto did now, but he just couldn't place why. He was interrupted from his musings when he noticed that she had summoned forth what was obviously a summoning scroll. This was something interesting, but since he could not tell what type of summon it was, this information was almost useless. He decided that since Naruto was obviously heading back to Konoha, he should notify the Hokage. So he rushed off to Konoha ahead of the two oblivious red heads. … Much later at the gates of Konoha Naruto walked up to the gate guards and noticed everyone was staring at him. He cleared his throat, mainly out of nerves, before continuing "Um hi, I would like to enter please" Naruto hoped that there wasn't a long and involved process for getting in if you were not recognized.

The guard narrowed his eyes in suspicion at the man, he was in what was little more than a loin cloth, making him fairly suspicious, or a victim of a very unfortunate accident. Seeing as he was covered in dried blood and had not a scratch on him however was even more suspicious, and to top it all off, he wore a leaf forehead protector. While the guard did not know every single ninja in the village, he should have been able to at least recognize him if he was indeed a Shinobi from Konoha. "Who are you" the guard asked in a carefully neutral tone. Not wanting to tip the other to his suspicions. He already got into trouble once, or else he wouldn't have been busted down to guard duty. Though this was an important job, nobody wanted to do it. It was just so boring, and routine, also almost nothing ever happened, well except perhaps now he thought. He still thought it was worth it to sabotage that demons physiological preparatory course though. "Naruto" Naruto responded, hoping that straightforwardness would help him get back into the village faster.

"Uh huh, so you're saying that you are Naruto?" the guard asked who was starting to think this was some kind of joke.

"Yeah I'm Naruto Uzumaki."

"You know kid; sometimes your stupidity simply amazes me."The kyuubi remarked in a bored drawl from inside his head.

"Is this some kind of joke?" The guard asked, thinking about who would pull something like this.

"Hey, I'm not joking!"Naruto shouted indignantly "I just had a little mishap, and I just happened to end up like this, I even have my academy ID with me, right …" Naruto trailed off as he realized that all of the stuff that had been in his pockets was gone, along with the pockets themselves. "Uh huh, well are you sure you want to stick to that story? At least if you said it was a joke it would have been less troublesome, though if it was a joke you should have at least tried to look a little more like what you say you are." The guard said in a tone that suggested he was not at all amused, no matter which story he stuck to.

"Your damn right I'm going to stick to my story." Naruto yelled, annoyed at how the guard was treating him. "I'm Uzumaki Naruto, and I'm not going to lie just because some guard doesn't believe me.

The guard shrugged. "Ok, well I could just have the Anbu ask a few questions. Best to be sure about such things anyway." Naruto did not really realize that the guard meant to have him tortured, so he agreed. "Alright I'll go talk to the Anbu then; they've been there for me in the past." He said cheerfully, glad that he didn't have to put up with this guard any more.

"Again I just can't help be amazed." the Kyuubi remarked but Naruto didn't notice. "Well I guess I have to keep him alive again" she thought out loud, remembering how the Anbu always smelled of fresh blood and agony. She smirked. Oh well, at least he's interesting, if a little foolish, she thought to herself, as the guard called some Anbu.

Hokage office

"Hokage-sama, there is someone claiming to be Uzumaki Naruto. We have taken him in for questioning." An Anbu reported.

Sarutobi took a puff off his pipe before asking "And, why exactly did you take him for questioning? Is there something odd about him to justify such action without orders?"

"Yes, Hokage-sama, he does not look anything like Uzumaki." The Anbu pulled out a picture. "This is the person claiming to be him."

"I see. Hmm, does he appear to Henged, or delusional or a spy of some sort?" "No, Hokage-sama, he does not." "I see… did he happen to have a girl with him when he showed up?" Sarutobi asked, thinking back to Kakashi's report.

"No Hokage-sama he did not appear to be with anyone." The Anbu answered, even though the question caught him off his guard. "Ok that will be all, bring him in so I can ask him a few questions."

"Yes, Hokage-sama." The Anbu said as he withdrew. "Naruto, what's happening?" The Hokage said to himself.

Later Naruto walked into the office of his personal hero, followed closely by a group of Anbu. "Uh hey old man" Naruto said hesitantly as he opened the door. He didn't look too good at the moment. He was covered in bruises and cuts from the "questions" the Anbu asked earlier although they were healing visibly. However on the up side, he did get some new clothes out of it. They were some flowing white robes that they had sitting around. Though not high quality they made Naruto look regal. They also, showed the blood all the better from the "questions" asked of him recently.

Sarutobi took all this in silently, focusing on the person in front of him intently. He knew that awkward stance anywhere, the stance Naruto normally had when he was in trouble. All of a sudden Sarutobi grinned hooping to ease the other and to test him at the same time. "Hey Naruto how's it going." Sarutobi asked in a gentle voice.

Seeing the old man grin made Naruto relax and return the grin with one of his own. "Hehe well I could be better, but I'm fine." Naruto said in a more relaxed posture with his hand behind his head. He was glad that the third seemed to recognize him.

"Well that's good, so tell me Naruto what happened to make you run away?" Sarutobi said losing the look of good humor, he also had a very hard look in his eyes, one that spoke of great displeasure. Taken aback by how serious Sarutobi Naruto answered nervously. "Well you see some of the villagers wanted to blame me for something or another that I wasn't responsible for. I ran away not wanting to hurt anyone and, I sort of don't remember much except that I changed into what I am now somehow, and found my way back."

"Naruto I heard a report that there was a girl with you who was she?" Sarutobi asked, still looking a little displeased, though slightly curious.

"Oh well her, um, she um, helped me escape and showed me the way back to the village" Naruto said truthfully if rather lamely. Though he slightly blushed from the image that popped into his head, of when he fell off the cliff with the Kyuubi while she was in that white shirt.

Sarutobi noticed the blush and wondered what was going on bringing him around completely from disappointment. "Alright Naruto do you know her name, or anything else about her? Like where she's from, or what she wanted, or anything of that sort? Anything that you tell me can be potentially useful." The Hokage asked, slightly suspiciously.

"Sure" Naruto said, grinning, though he was slightly worried. "She said to call her Akako, though I don't know much else about her, other than she helped me out when I needed it." Ya everything I said was true, but I still feel bad about not telling the old man about everything. I just don't him to start looking at me with the same cold eyes as everyone else. I hope he'll forgive me if I ever tell him the whole story, Naruto thought to himself.

Sarutobi saw that Naruto seemed to be telling the truth so he decided to just let him go. "Ok you can go, but, before you go I just want to say don't just trust strangers at their word. They may seem nice, but there's no telling what she may have done had, she been a person that was less honorable. There now, that should be all. Though I am curious who that girl was, something is odd about this whole thing."

Sarutobi thought to himself as Naruto walked out. Oh well, at least Naruto is doing fine, though with the Kyuubi chakra the other day, I really should tell him that he is the container. I really hope he's ready when I get around to telling him. Wait, I think I'm forgetting something… oh well if it's important it'll come to me.

Outside

Naruto stepped outside and felt great after his visit with the Hokage. He noticed first that nobody was looking at him with contempt evident in their eyes. He also realized that some of the females in the crowd were staring at him overly long. They had something in their eyes that he could not place, it was odd for him and he found himself getting all red under their gazes. It wasn't that they were being overly obvious about their staring it was just that he was able to tell since all of his senses were enhanced. In fact, many of the women that were staring at him had a particular smell about them. It was him smelling similar smells all over that he finally noticed that those that smelled were the ones that looked at him like they were hungry. In lieu of this discovery he was an extraordinary shade of red when he noticed that he was almost home. When he made it home he did his normal routine; which was eat ramen, after which his stomach felt terribly weird. Take a shower, though that didn't help with his stomach as he had hoped it would, and go to bed, which was really too small for him. He opted for the floor instead at this point instead of the hassle of getting comfortable on the small bed. As he was falling asleep, he was thinking things over. I wonder, did the old man tell anyone that I look different? Sigh. This might be a long day. I should probably go to the academy tomorrow as well to see what team I'm on. I mean I did pass so I have to be on a team right? Naruto finally got to sleep with these thoughts on his mind.

The next day "Iruka Sensei?" Naruto called into his old classroom hoping that the Chunin would be there.

Though his voice sounded nothing like it had before, Iruka could have sworn he heard Naruto calling him, but when he turned around he saw that it was obviously someone different. Though he still thought it was weird that he had thought it was Naruto, everyone knew that Naruto had run out of the village two days ago. Such a shame seeing as he had just graduated. He also thought it was weird for this man to call him 'Iruka sensei' in such a familiar tone. "Hello can I help you" Iruka said politely, hiding his suspicion about the man.

"Yeah, you sure can Sensei, can you tell me whose genin team I'm on? I missed the call outs…" Naruto trailed off when Iruka looked at him like he was insane. Naruto knew it was because of his appearances. "Sigh, Iruka sensei I know this will sound suspicious but believe me. I am Naruto.

"No you are not" Iruka said, looking closely at Naruto. "If you couldn't be bothered to at least Henge into him before coming here then…" Iruka trailed off as his visitor smiled a smile that looked very like Naruto's.

"Iruka sensei if you don't believe me now I know a way that I can convince you." Naruto said still smiling wickedly.

Iruka didn't budge, there were very few things that he was close minded about and one of them was people being cruel to Naruto or trying to further decrease his reputation with the village that already despised him. Even though this was a relatively new sentiment, it was a strong one none the less. "If you continue on this path I will be forced to escort you out and hand you over to the Anbu." He said with a deadly serious look in his eyes.

Naruto visibly shuddered, his smile slipping completely away turning into a grimace, thinking back to his recent stay with the Anbu. "Iruka sensei please there is no need to call the Anbu, my visit with them yesterday was more than enough, believe me. Of course I am still confident that I can convince you that it is me."

Iruka thought about it, though he was still reluctant to let this man claim to be Naruto so soon after he left. Something told him to let this man at least try to convince him. Maybe it was just the hope that Naruto had returned somehow, albeit changed, he just hoped that this wouldn't be a mistake. He gave a curt nod that told Naruto that it was ok to continue. Naruto's grin came back into place instantly.

"Iruka sensei who else would make a jutsu like this." He said, calling out his infamous jutsu "sexy no jutsu"

Iruka was just shocked… and maybe he was lying in a pool of blood, but still amazed that anyone would do that. Though pretty much a Henge, it was pretty shocking when Naruto would do that to him. To make matters worse though Naruto didn't stop there, he went on to make as many shadow clones as he could. He however did not account for the sudden increase to his chakra from his changes and made so many the room literally covered from floor to ceiling with sexy Naruto clones.

"Naruto!" Iruka yelled angrily in a voice that was reserved for his old troublemaking student. This was more out of reflex than actually acknowledging that it was Naruto, though only Naruto would be capable of this, he thought. Naruto released the clones looking a little sheepish about accidentally calling so many clones. "Sorry Iruka sensei."

"Fine, fine you've got me, I believe you. Here come with me for some ramen though; I've got something to tell you about your team." Iruka said carefully neutral. They ended up at Ichiraku's later talking along the way

As they sat down, Tuechi saw Iruka. "Ah Iruka who did you bring with you?" Iruka looked at Naruto again and wondered how he was going to tell the ramen shop owner the truth. Thankfully Naruto was already on it.

"Old man it's me Naruto" Naruto said forthrightly. Iruka of course had hoped that Naruto would have had a little more tact than that, but alas it wasn't to be.

Tuechi looked at Naruto closely and he looked like he could see Naruto's soul. "Nope not him, he finally declared" looking at Iruka as if asking if this was some kind of joke.

"Sorry Tuechi, your mistaken, this is Naruto, he just got finished proving it to me right now, while he was asking about his new instructor. Tuechi still looked slightly doubtful, but then he just nodded as though accepting it as truth. He saw Naruto somewhat drooling on the menu, and decided that as long as he was a paying customer that he wouldn't make a big deal out of it. Of course he still wished that the excitable blonde was back. It kind of left him sad to know that he had finally run away, probably, someone did something to Naruto and it was just too much for the boy. The owner thought sadly. He made their dishes and served even as he listened to the conversation noting that it did sound like one of the talks that, Naruto and Iruka, would often share when they came here. It kind of made him feel better just listening to their conversations.

After a while of idle chatter they got to the business at hand during a lull in the conversation "Naruto while you had run away Jounin instructors were chosen and well you missed it. Fortunate for you though, was we have an opening for a team. The other two couldn't become a team without another person, so in essence if you had stayed away you would have made sure that they would have had to repeat the academy. Since you came back, however, you have put them back on the path to being successful ninja.

Naruto kind of felt bad that he had almost made his teammates, whoever they were, repeat the academy. That guilt was banished though as he thought of the reasons he left. "Well Iruka Sensei, though I feel bad about potentially having held my teammates back, I feel I had a good reason for leaving. I would rather not discuss that, however, so instead, who are my teammates?"

"Well at the academy we have a tradition to put the weakest scoring student in the same team as the median scoring student, and the highest scoring student. This is the basic process for picking the teams, however, since you were not there we did not have the appropriate numbers, and two of the teams were adjusted until and one team was disbanded. Hinata being an average scoring student and Shino who was a higher scoring student were left without a team. Kiba would normally have been on their team but as he was the second lowest scoring student aside from you, he got put on the same team as Sakura, and Sasuke."

At this Naruto audibly groaned, he would have loved to be put on the same team as Sakura, he even would have put up with being on the same team as Sasuke.

"Ahem" Iruka cleared his throat to get Naruto stop moping. "Anyway as I was saying you guys pretty much switched teams, that was the adjusting to the teams I was referring to." They probably just didn't want the last Uchiha to have to repeat the academy, or else they would have just let the team Naruto should have been on be held back. Iruka thought darkly to himself.

"So" Naruto said "I'm on a team with Hinata and Shino" he didn't mind really he was just taking it in. though he was a bit afraid that they would not like him overly much. He was on the loud and, obstinate side of things and they were both on the incredibly quiet side of things. Oh well, at least I got a team, and if they don't like me then… well, I'll deal with that when I get there. "So, do they know their back on a team yet?"

Iruka shook his head. "Naruto I just found out right now when you told me how would they possibly find out already?" Iruka asked, smiling

"I don't know, actually I just hoping slightly, that maybe that old man may have told people that I had changed, but it appears he has not. Iruka shook his head at the casual way he referred to the Hokage.

"Naruto I've got to be going now. I need to tell Kurenai about your return so that she knows." "Alright then see you later Sensei." Naruto said still eating his ramen. Naruto finished his ramen shortly after Iruka left, and he wondered if perhaps he should go after the Chunin. All of a sudden his stomach hurt. It felt as though his innards were being dipped in the fires of hell while being crushed by a stampeding elephant. Needless to say he collapsed in the street. He noticed that several people were trying to find out what was wrong, but he couldn't say exactly what was wrong.

All of a sudden he heard the Kyuubi talking to him. "Hey kid, I wouldn't eat that stuff anymore." The Kyuubi said not without sympathy

"Urrg Akako," he groaned in pain. "Why not, I always eat ramen." Naruto said confused and in pain.

"Because I refuse to help heal you next time, seeing as how if I wasn't regenerating you right now, you would be puking your guts out. You're lucky I took your pain for as long as I did as it is."

"But, how could this happen!" Naruto exclaimed. "I love ramen, why can't I eat it, what happened to me!" Naruto said with passion, hoping that this was just some kind of sick joke. The pain abating, he was running home on the rooftops, distressed, and trying to make it to the bathroom in time.

"Kid I'm sorry, but your body just can't handle it, it seems you need to eat unprocessed food, or else your body will try to reject it, as if was poison."

The village at that point, heard the most heartfelt, tear jerking sound ever, Naruto's outcry of desperation and fury to the heavens above about his beloved ramen. End for now