Chapter 1

The Birth of a Warrior

Naruto matched the exasperated look of his academy teacher Iruka with eyes of pure petulance, seated in front of not just the teacher but also their leader, the Third Hokage, in the old man's office no less. He thought this was a bit much for planting stink bombs in Iruka's desk before cutting class - he'd done it three times already this month, after all. He would have thought they would have figured there was no stopping him by now.

"Naruto, these pranks are a waste of time when you could be studying and honing your frankly abysmal skills!" Iruka continued droning on, his arms crossed. The ten-year-old blonde replied by sinking further in his seat and turning up his nose.

"Naruto…" Iruka growled, pinching the bridge of his nose. He was about to launch into another tirade when the Third held up his hand in a motion for the younger ninja to stop. The aged shinobi did not speak right away, waiting for Naruto to focus on him. Both men were authority figures, which almost immediately generated some levels of distrust from the young orphan, but with his history with the child and grandfatherly disposition, the blonde was more likely to listen to him than his teacher.

"Naruto." Hiruzen Sarutobi finally spoke, his voice holding none of his normal fondness for the child. It was a hard tone of an adult about to speak truth to a child. "At this rate, you'll never get me to retirement."

Immediately Naruto surged to his feet, the chair he had been sitting in falling backwards and clattering against the ground. "Whaddaya mean gramps?! I told you, I'm going to be Hokage, believe it!" There were few things that were certain to the young hooligan, but his dream was at the top of that list, and even someone he looked up to could not question it unchallenged.

"It is one thing to state your dream, Naruto. It is another to work towards it, and you seem far more interested in working towards these blatant calls for attention." Hiruzen replied flatly, his tone leaving no room for argument.

A bit of the energy left Naruto's body at the words of one of the few adults he trusted and respected. He lowered his head and began rubbing the back of it, a nervous tick he had had his whole life. "But gramps…"

"No buts, Naruto." The leader replied. Seeing the boy's downcast posture, his expression softened. "You know, I do believe you when you say you can become Hokage."

Naruto's neck audibly cracked as his eyes surged up to meet Hiruzen's, wide with disbelief. While the Third had never disparaged his dream outright like most, he had also never so certainly confirmed his faith in it. "... Really?" The blonde asked, his voice so much smaller than usual.

"Really. Iruka isn't a slouch - being able to trick him so often, especially at your age, takes effort and skill. Wouldn't you agree, Iruka?" The Third raised an eyebrow at his subordinate.

Iruka at first looked a bit surprised at being spoken to directly, before he crossed his arms and sighed heavily. "I would agree with that assessment. Frankly Naruto, some of your pranks are very impressive. I'm still questioning how you managed to sneak so much catnip into the Inuzuka compound."

"That wasn't me." Naruto replied automatically.

"While I have no proof that you're lying, yes Naruto, we all know it was you." Iruka pointed out with a grimace. He was still shocked at the fact that the Inuzuka had wanted to find the perpetrator not because of the amount of dead alley cats, but rather because of how wounded several of their ninja hounds were.

It had been determined after that incident that if the Fire Daimyo's wife's cat, Tora, were ever suspected to be on the nip during any of her many escapes, the mission to retrieve the beast would be elevated to a B-rank.

"Regardless." Hiruzen cut back in, a sweatdrop forming on the back of his head. "The point is Naruto, you're not stupid. You're not talentless. You simply lack discipline." He sighed as memories of a young white-haired boy with a penchant for perversion instead of pranks flashed through his mind. "You remind me a great deal of an old student of mine. When he was around fourteen or so, he gained another sensei that finally managed to impart that discipline he also lacked when younger. Now he is known as one of the strongest ninja our village has ever seen. He even trained your hero the four Hokage. I think you have that same potential."

The blonde nodded slowly as he considered the words of his elder. "But gramps, I'm really not good at a lot of the stuff at the academy. My ninjutsu sucks and I'm always losing spars." He rarely voiced his insecurities, but he was also rarely spoken to so frankly.

"And that is where discipline comes into play, Naruto. It is important to stay the course when things are difficult, to have the character to keep trying in the face of adversity." The wizened shinobi emphasized.

Naruto nodded again, his expression one of deep contemplation. Iruka felt torn between crying tears of joy at such a look on the face of the bull-headed blonde and rage that it had taken the Third two minutes of using a more serious tone of voice to accomplish what he had been trying to for years now.

A stray thought entered Hiruzen's head, and he decided to capitalize. "I'll make you a deal, Naruto. If you promise to take your studies more seriously, I'll show you a bit of advanced ninjutsu training you can practice in your free time. If you're disciplined about it, you could be ahead of your classmates in a very important school of ninjutsu by the time graduation rolls around."

Immediately the child's eyes lit up in excitement, and he was almost vibrating as he nodded vigorously. "Hell yeah gramps, you got a deal!"

"Uh, sir, what do you mean by advanced techniques?" Iruka questioned nervously as he saw horrific visions of Naruto throwing fireballs in class the moment his rival, Sasuke Uchiha, looked at him funny.

"Nothing too crazy, but rather, the start of advanced techniques." The Third assuaged the academy teacher as he began rummaging through his desk. After a moment, he pulled out a piece of paper and handed it to the boy. "Channel some chakra into that for me, would you?"

The blonde's expression became quizzical, but nonetheless he took the paper and did as asked. After a couple of seconds, the paper tore itself in half cleanly, not a single bit of the cut jagged. One-half of the paper started to soak through and the other half turned to ash. "Woah, how did I do that?!" The blonde exclaimed, his eyebrows disappearing behind his spiky bangs.

The Third and Iruka were doing the impression of a fish as they looked at the paper. The Third gathered his wits faster than Iruka. "Well Naruto I definitely was not expecting you to have two elements much less three. It appears you have a primary wind element but it looks like you have a second element of fire. And your third element is water. Most impressive for a child your age. I think the last person to have three natural elements was me." He said as he started to rub his beard deep in thought.

The Third looks at the child that is in front of him. He had known the child had plenty of potential due to a combination of his heritage and the circumstances of his birth, but a wind element on top of that only made the possibilities even more endless. "You know Naruto, the wind element is one of the rarest, both here in the Land of Fire and abroad. In fact, only one of our active ninja has that as his primary element - someone who only recently returned to the village."

As if on cue, a knock sounded on the door. "Ah, the timing could not work out more splendidly." The Third noted with a smile full of conflicting emotions. "Come in, Asuma."

The door opened, and a bear of a man entered. He stood near two meters even, with a stocky build and tanned skin. His hair was black, and he sported a beard around his chin. His outfit consisted of the standard jonin fatigues, however he did wear a white sash with a red circle around his waist. A cigarette, an ever-present accessory, hung loosely out of his mouth. "Hey there old man." The man greeted the Third gruffly.

"Now Asuma, is that any way to greet your father after five years?" Hiruzen asked, his voice continuing to be genial even as his smile grew a bit strained.

"... Hey dad." Asuma sighed, smiling ruefully. "Good to see you again. You too Iruka - how's teaching at the academy going?"

"Some days - and students - are harder than others." Iruka sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose in exasperation.

"I take it blondie over there is one of the hard ones?" The bearded man asked, nodding in the direction of the child in the room, who immediately had a tick mark form on his head.

"Very difficult." Iruka agreed, causing the tick mark on Naruto's head to grow in size.

"I'm right here…" The blonde grumbled, as always hating the feeling of being overlooked. "And people call me rude!"

"Indeed, you are right there, being scolded for poor attendance and pranks." Hiruzen sighed. The boy blushed and looked to the side. "Asuma, I wanted to ask, would you be willing to help Naruto with something for me?"

A crease formed on Asuma's brow as he immediately was on guard. While he hadn't recognized the boy by his looks, there was only one Naruto he knew of that would warrant special attention from his father - Naruto Uzumaki, container of the Kyubi. "Depends on what you need, and if it's an order."

"Not an order, a personal favor." Hiruzen clarified, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. It looked like Asuma had retained some of his rebellious nature in his time outside the village. "We just discovered that Naruto here has three elemental affinities - including a primary affinity to wind."

Eyes widening, the returning jonin looked at the blonde in a new light. "Is that so? You know, I had actually been thinking about what I would do with my free time between missions now that I'm back. Guarding the daimyo is a bit of an around-the-clock thing. I suppose training the only other wind user in the village will prep me for taking on a genin team in a couple of years."

"Oh, plans to become a jonin sensei? I wasn't expecting that to be on your mind when you returned." Hiruzen noted, looking at his son with some small surprise. Then he smiled. "It would be timely - there's a new generation of the Ino-Shika-Cho trio graduating in two years time."

"Eh, maybe I'll stick with tradition, maybe not. I got time." Asuma shrugged. He turned his attention to the blonde. "What do you say, kid? Wanna learn how to use wind chakra?"

At the offer of new jutsu, the blonde immediately put petulance and embarrassment to the side of his mind, looking at the large man with excitement. "Oh hell yeah!"

"I like the enthusiasm. I need to debrief with my dad first - I just got back from a long trip. Do you know where the training grounds are?" The blonde nodded. "Great. Meet me at training ground thirty-four in an hour." Asuma looked back at his father and Iruka. "You two done with him?"

"For the day." Iruka nodded. "Remember the deal you made with Lord Third, Naruto. I expect you to be focused on learning in class tomorrow."

"No problem sensei, a deal's a deal." Naruto nodded, actually looking serious for once. He may not have had manners in a wide sense, but Naruto Uzumaki took his word seriously.

"Alright, then head out. You as well Iruka. I'll need to catch up with my son." Hiruzen dismissed them both. The two left, and Hiruzen gestured for Asuma to sit down.

"So…" Hiruzen asked awkwardly as the younger man took a seat. "Am I still, in your words, a cold old bastard for retaking the Hokage's office?"

Asuma barked out a laugh. "Nah, I think I was just mad that you were using work to avoid grieving mom with me and sis. I still don't like it, but I get it." He smiled deviously. "You still hide good liquor in your desk?"

"Why am I not surprised you know about my stash?" The elder Sarutobi laughed, reaching into his desk.

Naruto walked through the village, his posture slumped and his hands in his pockets. With practiced ease, he either ignored the villagers glares and murmurs or shot back challenging looks, winning every staring contest he participated in. Where he had once been hurt by this treatment from the public at large, he was at a point where there was no hurt left for him to feel.

'Discipline, huh? Old man makes it sound so easy.' The child mentally grumbled, frustrated with the whole situation. He wanted to be strong and get acknowledged by everyone, and he would do anything to do it, but the academy was just too boring. At least the old man had been good on his word.

A smile formed on the blonde's face as he remembered the tanned man named Asuma. Something about him made it easy for the boy to like him. He didn't know why, but Naruto was sure that he knew what it was like to hate being told what to do. The fact that he was the old man's son and was gonna teach him jutsu was a huge plus.

It wasn't long before the blonde arrived at the training grounds. Standing at the signs, he tried to remember which one he was supposed to go wait for his new teacher at. 'Ah man, I think there was a four in it… Was it forty-four?'

Seeing the sign for training ground forty-four, he made his way in that direction, and after a bit of walking he came face-to-face with tall fencing that blocked off a deep forest, the trees even taller than usually seen in the area surrounding the village. He noticed multiple warning signs denoting the area as dangerous, but having decided it must have been forty-four, it was easy for the boy to quickly scale and hop over the fence. Deciding he should pick a good spot for training, he began walking in.

It was not long before the child was hopelessly lost. "I think I messed up." He muttered to himself, pulling at his spikey blonde hair with both hands as his anxiety grew. Hearing a rustling from some nearby bushes, he listened to his instincts and bolted, attempting to run as fast as he could in what he was fairly certain was the direction he had come from.

Thwack!

Blinking the stars out of his eyes, the blonde realized he had run head-first into a branch. Standing shakily, he looked around and saw a cave that, for some reason, had two torches mounted on the outside. As he saw the mouth of the cave, the torches seemed to flicker and then light.

Approaching the mouth of the cave cautiously, he shouted into the opening. "Anyone in there?" He received no reply. Deciding that with how lost he was, there was little to lose, he went through the mouth of the cave and began heading towards its depths.

Naruto slowly walked deeper into the cave noticing that the wall almost looked melted from something that was extremely hot. As he made his way deeper into the cave he could see a faint orange glow that started to increase in size as he walked closer. In the wall are two identical blades, the hilt of the blades looks like a skeletal hand grabbing it with wooden handles on them and chains on the end of them.

Naruto slowly reached out for the blades almost like he was in a trance. He could feel a powerful presence, almost like it was calling to him. As his small hand touched the large handle of the blade everything went black.

Naruto slowly woke up and looked around. What he saw confused him, gone was the cave that he had been in now he was in a sewer-like place with pipes all lining the walls. Inside some of the pipes, he could see a blue liquid, and in some of the other pipes he could see an orange liquid both of which were constantly flowing.

Naruto slowly walked in the direction that the orange liquid was flowing away from, he wasn't sure where he was or why he felt like he had to walk that way but he did. He kept walking for what felt like hours until he came to a large chamber with a gate. On the center of the gate was a paper tag with an intricate design on it.

Author's note: This is the start of chapter on that I have done so far. If people enjoy this I'll expand it. Thanks for any and all support. Also check out PinkDragonGuy's story. I beta for him and he's one of the ones that told me I should write this.