Chapter 3

Academy days; Part 2

Disclaimer; I do not own Naruto.

When Naruto first heard that he would attend the Academy, words could not begin to describe how happy he felt. He had begged his parents to start training them early, and they agreed. So at the tender age of 5 years old, his parents started training them. Although his sisters took the training seriously, as seriously as they could for their age, Naruto was more dedicated. He practised his kunai and shuriken accuracy every morning for at least 3 hours and would go through the taijutsu stances his father taught them every day.

Now, one would wonder why a child so young would train so extensively at such a young age, instead of playing with other kids or doing other things that children his age would be doing. Truth was, Naruto knew people treated him differently; he was not stupid, far from it actually. What he did not understand, however, is why people treated him the way they did. Sure his parents were very powerful and known throughout the entire elemental nations, but he could not help but feel that there was a deeper reason for it. The fact that everyone he met treated him with far more respect and prestige than his sisters, further helped prove his point.

He hoped that by becoming powerful and making his own reputation, people would finally recognize him for him, and not for the name he carries. So day after day he would train aimlessly, wanting to prove to others his own worth. When his parents told him that he would be attending the Academy, he was ecstatic. This was his chance to prove himself! He could not help but be giddy at the thought of the things he would learn, all the powerful jutsu and techniques that they would be taught.

Like many children that were attending the Academy, he was sorely disappointed when during the first week of the Academy all they learned was the history of Konoha and other minor things. In all honesty he had no idea what those lessons had to do with being a ninja, since it wasn't something one could use to save their life or the life of someone else. His sisters though seemed to actually enjoy the Academy; perhaps it was because they got to spend a lot of time with their friends. Still friends aside, he was seriously regretting ever attending the Academy in the first place...and to think, he still had six more years to go before he could graduate.

-6 Months Later-

Naruto sat in his usual place in the class, which was at the back. He looked around the class and saw his sisters, like always, sitting a few rows in front of him. Not much had really changed in the past six months, he still disliked the Academy and the fact that had yet to be taught anything noteworthy. Annoyed, he had asked his father when they would start teaching them 'real' ninja stuff. His father had just chuckled, and told him that they would eventually be taught. To Naruto's eternal frustration, however, his father never did say when that would be.

Although, there was something that had happened, that made him happy. He had made a new friend, his first friend ever, to be exact.

-Flashback: 5 months earlier-

The bell had just rung, signifying that it was break time. All the students excitedly rushed out of the classroom, not that anyone could blame them, after all they were free from the boring preachings of the teachers; for a few minutes at least.

Naruto walked around the school playground, looking for somewhere to sit, preferably somewhere where there were no other kids. He saw his sisters sitting under a tree chatting happily with their friends; Ino, Hinata and a pink haired girl who they had just recently made friends with. After a few minutes of walking, he found an empty bench, which was thankfully hidden by a few trees. He looked around to see if there was anyone around who might have been using the bench and after finding no signs of anyone around, he sat on the bench and was about to open his bento when he heard a few shuffles in the nearby shrubs.

He waited for someone to appear but no one showed up, however the shuffles continued. Curiosity getting the better of him, he stood up and walked towards the bush. He stopped right in front of said bush and spoke up

"I know you're there, you might as well just come out." he called out, trying and failing miserably, to make his voice as stern and commanding as he could. With him being so young and his body not yet having gone through puberty, his voice came out more like a cute squeak than anything else. There was a moment of silence, before whoever was in the small shrub started to come out.

The person who came out was a tad bit taller than Naruto, meaning that he at least had to be the same age as him. He was wearing a long sleeved, hooded, light green jacket that completely covered his body from the waist up, with a tall collar that hid part of his face. The hood was up, covering most of his short and spiky, dark brown hair. Inside his jacket, he wore a green shirt, with dark brown pants that ended midway down his calves; he was also wearing the standard dark blue Shinobi shoes. Round and thin wired, black sunglasses hid his eyes. His name, from what Naruto could remember was Shino, heir of the Aburame clan.

Like most of his clansman, he was a very silent person who only spoke when spoken to, and even then he would only say a few words. Not that Naruto had ever spoken to him before, he had noticed all of this, because they were in the same class.

There was an awkward silence between the two, before Naruto spoke.

"What were you doing? In the bushes I mean" Shino raised his hand, and on his finger was a small black bug.

"I was studying the types of insects that I have found here at the Academy" Shino said, looking at the insect on his hand.

"Oh" was Naruto's intelligent reply, honestly he had no response to that. The awkwardness further increased as the two boys stared at each other, unsure of what to do or say next.

"My name Naruto by the way, Namikaze Naruto." Naruto introduced himself, stretching out his hand.

"Aburame Shino" Shino introduced himself, bringing his hand up to grasp and shake Naruto's out stretched one.

-Flashback End-

Ever since then, they had started hanging out more and more and before long they had become good friends. His mother had been really happy and slightly relieved when he had told her that he had made a friend at the Academy. She had been worried that her son would never make any friends of his own. Now if only she could convince him to make more...

Naruto was brought out from his walk down memory lane by the sound of the bell ringing, signifying the end of the school day. After saying goodbye to his friend, he made his way to the Academy Gate where he saw Hitomi and Hikari waiting for him.

"Hurry up Naruto! Kaa-chan is not here to pick us up!" Hitomi shouted out excitedly. Their mother had started taking missions again 3 months earlier.

'She probably got bored of being alone the whole day' Naruto thought to himself. She would usually come home before dinner, since she did not take missions that would take her far from the village. Nor would she take those that would take her a long time to complete.

He knew why sisters were so excited, and to an extent, so was he. Their mother only allowed them to eat ramen/pocky once a week and with how much they loved those foods, it was torture for the 4 of them; their father included. So whenever their mother was away- like today- they would visit the Ichiraku Ramen Stand. In Naruto's case, the pocky store, and treat themselves to several bowls of ramen and pocky sticks.

Picking his up pace, Naruto walked to the gate and the three made their way to their destinations.

-One Hour Later-

After their little 'snack', the trio made their way home. As they approached their house, they all felt a deep feeling of foreboding, feeling slightly scared they slowed down their pace and slowly opened the door into their house. The house was silent, too silent, a very bad feeling slowly rose from the pits of their stomachs.

"T-Tou-san...? K-Kaa-chan...?" Hitomi called out nervously, her stuttering voice ringing throughout the empty house. They slowly walked into the dining room and were about to turn and go upstairs when suddenly, before they could even blink, they heard a whistling sound like something cutting through the air at great speeds. Acting on his gut, Naruto jumped in front of his sisters.

For a very tense second everything was deathly silent before-

"NARUTO!" The horrified shrieks of Hitomi and Hikari rang through the now not so empty house. Naruto looked at them in confusion, wondering what had made his sisters scream out his name in obvious horror. He felt something sticking out of his stomach. He looked down and found to his shock the end of a kunai knife sticking out of his stomach, he saw that the area around the kunai was turning red.

"Oh" was the only thing that he managed to say, before he saw the ground getting closer to him and heard the screams of his sisters.

Two men dressed in black ANBU attire, wearing blank white masks, suddenly appeared inside the room both of them were holding a kunai in each hand. However, the two distressed girls were at their bother's side, crying and screaming for their brother to wake up, completely oblivious to the two men behind them. They didn't understand what was going on, all they knew was that someone had had hurt their brother, and their brother was now on the ground, bleeding.

Normally, in a situation like this, you would have to run away and get help. However, both girls were only six years old, add on to the fact that they were too shocked and scared to do anything, so they did what any normal child would do...cry.

Naruto could see and hear his sisters crying, and he could feel an extreme pain in his stomach area. Through his hazy vision, Naruto could see two black figures moving slowly towards his sisters. He tried shouting for them to run but every time he tried to speak, the pain would intensify tenfold and all he managed to do was to try to rasp out something that made sense. Despite his efforts, however, both girls did not even hear it what he was trying to tell them. His mind was shouting, screaming for his body to move but it would not respond.

'Move...move...MOVE!' he chanted in his mind. At the very last second, just when the dark figures were about to reach his beloved sisters, he felt it. Something warm, something powerful, rushing through his veins like fire. The pain in his stomach suddenly disappeared, his vision cleared and became even sharper and time slowed down for him. With a primal roar, he jumped to his feet and with lighting fast speed, he yanked the kunai from his stomach and stabbed it into the first ANBU's heart. The second ANBU was shocked at what he had seen and froze for second, a mistake that proved to be his downfall. At that very moment, Naruto with all the strength he could muster threw the bloody kunai in his hand at the ANBU's head.

He could clearly see the kunai travelling in slow motion to the surprised ANBU's head, he saw as it ever so slowly, plunged itself deep into the man's head. He saw the man's eyes change from that of being surprised to that of horror, finally to the emptiness that accompanied lifelessness. All this happened with the fraction of a second, and this was all forever recorded in his brain.

When the man fell to the ground, Naruto blinked, surprised at what he had just done and his surprise soon turned into horror. Before he could even mutter a single word, his eyes rolled to the back of his head and he fell to the ground. However, he never felt his body reach the ground, as he felt two rather soft arms catch him. The last thing he saw was a red blur and a flash of yellow before everything went black.

-A Few Minutes Earlier-

Hokage Office

Minato sat in his chair with a very bored look on his face, he was almost finished with the paper work of the day, and would soon heard home to his awaiting family. He glanced at the clock and saw that it was already 3'o'clock, Kushina had yet to report in, which meant that she had not picked the children up from the Academy.

'They probably stopped for some ramen on the way home' he mused. Yes, he knew about their little 'stops' when Kushina was not there to pick them up. He had caught them one day, using the crystal ball when he was checking to see how they were. He did not tell Kushina, after all he too ate ramen a few times during the day. Telling her would not only make him a hypocrite but would also make her become suspicious of him too. Speaking of Kushina, he could feel her chakra signature approaching.

"Mina-koi!" without knocking, Kushina barged into his office. He smiled at her and stood up to give her a kiss.

"How was the mission?" he asked her, after breaking off from the kiss

"Same old, same old, I had to kick some evil mercenary's ass ttebane!" Kushina responded, unconsciously adding her verbal tick at the end of her statement. Minato just sweat dropped at the vague mission statement that she gave him.

"Are you ready to go home, or should go on without you.?"She asked him.

"I'm finished. Let me just grab my jacket and I'll Hiraishin us both home"

-At The House-

When both parents flashed home, they immediately knew that something was wrong, for one they could both smell blood in the house. Minato could not sense ANY of the ANBU that were always guarding their house and children, and lastly yet most importantly their ninja instincts were telling them that something was wrong. One does not make it far in the ninja career when you don't listen to your instincts, for they are almost if never wrong!

Now on guard, husband and wife made their way into the dining room, where the stench of blood was strongest. Through the corner of his eye, Minato could see Kushina struggling with not just rushing in there to see if their children were safe. Only years of being a Kunoichi stopped her...just barely. When they finally reached the dining room what they found shocked them, Hikari and Hitomi were kneeling on the ground with tears in their eyes looking at where Naruto was standing with his hand out stretched with a large amount of blood on his stomach and hands. They looked at, more specifically, his eyes. They were surprised to see two red eyes, with a single tomoe in each eye, looking at the dead figure with a kunai logged in his head. Kushina was the first to recover from her shock, when she saw his eyes turn into their normal deep blue and roll into the back of his head, she moved quickly and caught him before he could reach the ground.

Minato recovered a second later after Kushina, he instantly created two shadow clones that disappeared after nodding at him. He then moved to the ANBU's to check if they were dead and saw that they indeed were dead. After that, he went to see if his daughters were hurt, and saw that they were fine and were just traumatized. He pressed the back of their necks and they both fell into his arms, unconscious, giving them a chance to recover from the shock.

Kushina had caught her son before he could fall to the ground, and she noticed instantly, that he was pale which was probably from the loss of so much blood. She cradled him into her arms and turned to see Minato holding their daughters, who were both passed out in his arms. Now extremely worried, she quickly voiced her concern and question.

"W-what's wrong with them?" she asked, trying to stop herself from breaking down and freaking out, which she knew would only make things worse.

"They are both fine, just a bit traumatized. I knocked them out so they could rest, how's Naruto?" he replied showing far more control over his emotions than his wife.

"From what I can tell, he has lost a lot of blood. We have to take him to the hospital, immediately, before his situation gets any worse." At this Minato nodded his head and moved closer to where his wife was holding their son. She grabbed his shoulder and there was flash of yellow light, when the light died down they were all gone.

They never noticed a single plant root spread out on the ceiling.

-At The Hospital-

The only warning that the hospital staff got was a yellow flash of light before the Fourth Hokage suddenly appeared with his family. Upon seeing the limp, bloodied children, Tsunade- who had luckily been at the front desk collecting some medical files- quickly rushed to the family. She grabbed the attention of a few nurses working, and guided the family to an empty emergency room, and made quick work of attending to the wounded children.

-2 Hours Later-

After two hours of waiting, the emergency doors opened and Tsunade stepped out, Kushina immediately rushed to her with Minato not far behind.

"How are they?" Kushina asked worriedly. Her eyes were red from crying and fresh tears were already gathering.

"Both Hitomi and Hikari are fine, they had no physical injuries on them. However, both of them were traumatized, and will likely be suffering from nightmares for a few days" Tsunade explained, receiving a sigh of relief from both parents.

"Your son on the other hand, he lost a lot of blood. This caused his body to go into shock during the operation. It took us several minutes to stabilize him before we could give him the blood replenishing pills. He was the most traumatized, and I had to put him into a drug induced coma like state, to allow his body and mind to fully heal". Both parents were silent, before Minato asked Tsunade a question that was plaguing his mind.

"How long will he be in the coma for?"

"With his higher than normal healing rate, he should be awake in a week's time. I would suggest that one of you be here when he wakes up, seeing a familiar face might help". The two worried parents nodded their heads and released breaths that neither of them knew they were holding.

"Now, would one of you please tell me, what happened to my godchildren?" Tsunade asked sternly. Minato sighed and looked at his wife, who was already at her children's bedsides looking at them with so much love and worry, deep emotions that only a mother could bring out.

"We arrived-" and so Minato explained to Tsunade, how they had arrived at their home, to find their daughters crying on the floor and Naruto standing in front of two dead bodies. Tsunade was shocked and horrified at what she had been told, having guessed that Naruto, at six years old, had already made his first kill.

-One Week Later-

The first thing he felt, upon waking up, was a splitting headache and the constant 'beeping' sound was not making it any better. He slowly opened his eyes and quickly closed when he was assaulted by bright light that hurt his eyes. After a few seconds, he opened his eyes again and looked at the window; he noticed that it was bright outside, probably midday. Growing confused with each passing second, he sat up from the bed and tried to remember how he had gotten here.

Like a dam exploding, his memories came rushing back to him, and he remembered everything. How h had been stabbed in the stomach with a kunai while saving his sisters. Taking said kunai, and stabbing the kunai deep into the man's heart and the throwing it with dead accuracy, at the other man's head. The lifeless expressions from the men stared at him, the images playing over and over in his head. He did the only thing he could.

"AHHHHHH!" he let out the loudest scream he could ever muster. He held his head with both hands as he continued to scream, he never heard the door open, all he felt was the warm presence of his mother hugging him. He slowly stopped screaming and started crying, as his mother continued to hold him, and was now making cooing sounds to calm him down. After 30 minutes of crying, his wails quieted down into small sobs.

"I-I'm s-sorry K-K-Kaa-chan, I-I-I d-didn't mean t-to...t-to" Naruto cried out.

"Shhh. I know, I know, it's o-okay, nobody is going to hurt you. K-Kaa-chan is here" Kushina said soothingly, with tears running down her face. This continued for another hour, before Naruto finally fell asleep in her arms, by then she was humming a soft melody to help calm him down and thus allowing him to drift off to sleep.

She looked at the door and saw Minato, Tsunade and Kakashi standing there, looking at her. She blinked, and wondered for how long they had been standing there for. Her face turned serious when she addressed them.

"Did you find out who was responsible?" She asked not looking at any of them, but at her sleeping son.

"I'm afraid not. Whoever was responsible made sure to cover their tracks. I had Inoichi search the minds of the dead ANBU, however their minds had already been wiped clean. A memory seal had apparently been placed on them to wipe their memories clean, should they have been caught or died." Minato answered her, with his hands clenched, clearly angry. Kushina's hair slowly rose, and started flowing angrily in the air behind her.

"When I find out who is responsible, I'm going to sure they suffer .DEATH!" she said darkly, and Kakashi who had been silent the whole time, slowly backed away from the ever increasing killer intent that Kushina was releasing. Thankfully for him, Naruto who was still sleeping stirred a bit, his body slightly shaking. Instantly the KI disappeared, and Kushina was now holding her son even closer, and was muttering soft words to him. Everyone in the room sweat dropped at the 180 degree change she had just gone through.

'Women' the two men thought to themselves.

-Unknown Location-

In a dark building, hidden underground, an old man with a bandage covering his left eye and his left hand wrapped in bandages stood, holding his cane in front of two kneeled men in front of him.

"Report"

"Mission successful, Danzo-sama. Subject Namikaze Naruto has awakened both the Sharingan and showed signs of using Wood Release." One of the men reported in an emotionless voice. Danzo nodded his head, and tapped his cane on the ground, and the two men vanished.

'Good. With the boy's power growing steady and from such a young age, he shall become a force to be reckoned with when he grows older. A pity I could not take him under my foundation' Danzo thought to himself, as he turned around, and walked towards his own office.

CHAPTER END.

Special thanks to YokoNoDara for beta reading this chapter. Thank you!