Abbreviations:
AWC - After Warring Clans
Chapter 1:
Konoha: 71 AWC,
17th of June,
'To think he would go so far as to betray the village,' thought a figure hidden in the shadows.
"You also need to sabotage the Jinchuriki's education as much as possible. This way, you can use him to get the scroll and eliminate him once the time is right," A person with glasses said. His physical description couldn't be identified because it was too dark. The only notable features that person had were round glasses and a small ponytail.
"When should I execute it?" The other ninja said.
"I will inform you about it when it's most convenient. You have ample time to prepare for it, so don't waste it, " the ninja with the glasses said.
"Also, don't fail him too much, else he might drop out, which might spoil the whole plan," He continued.
"Alright, I will get on with it," The other ninja replied, receiving a scroll from the ninja with the glasses.
Both the ninjas left in a body flicker.
'Who are they working for? I guess I have to wait,' the figure in the shadows thought, disappearing in a puff of smoke.
In a small, dark room,
"So, that's what he is up to," a boy muttered. From a small study lamp's light, we could see that the boy had spiky, bright blonde hair. His name was Naruto Uzumaki. One of his shadow clones, which followed Mizuk, had popped, transferring its memories to him.
'Looks like I have to be more vigilant. The guy whom Mizuki spoke to is probably at least a Jonin in strength,' Naruto thought.
'I would have been oblivious to this scheme if it weren't for that fateful day,' Naruto thought back to the day he left the orphanage.
6 Years ago,
28th December,
Naruto was running away from the orphanage because he hated it there. Most of the children there bullied him since the matrons who were in charge of the orphanage didn't care much about him, letting the children do as they pleased. They only intervened when things got extreme so that he wouldn't die.
Tonight, most of the matrons had left to get supplies, leaving just 3 matrons in the huge orphanage to take care of over 200 kids, since most of the kids would have fallen asleep, making it safe for them to leave without overburdening the 3 matrons left in the orphanage. So, this time around, no one was there to monitor Naruto. The anbu were also not present around here because of the Kidnapping of the Hyuuga clan's heir, happened just minutes prior.
Just minutes before, Naruto was beaten up pretty badly by some of the older kids who blamed him for the loss of their parents. After the beating, Nauto decided to run away from there since he was always trampled on. Ever since the day he could remember, he had hated the orphanage; he had hated the orphans there; he had hated the matrons who ran the place.
That night, it snowed heavily. Naruto had put as many sweaters and clothes on himself as possible to keep himself warm.
He entered an abandoned clan district, to be exact, the Senju clan district. The barrier around the district let him pass through since he had Senju blood running through him. Usually, if someone without Senju blood tried to enter, it would reject he person from entering. But if someone manages to get in, it would alert the anbu headquarters and the Hokage.
18th of June,
"Fuinjutsu is soooo complicated!" Naruto shouted with annoyance evident in his tone. If he used shadow clones too much for training things which are very mentally draining, his head might just explode.
"Boss, level 7 is too hard," One of his clones said in a sad tone.
"So?! Shut up and start memorising them! This is the best way we can learn. As time goes on, hopefully, we will understand what is in this book," Naruto shouted.
The clone, which was scolded, mumbled some curses under its breath and started memorising the various seals and how they worked.
'From what I know, level 7 will take about 2 to 3 years to learn, but thanks to being free most of the time and using shadow clones, I can get through this level within 1 year,' Naruto thought half heartedly.
From what he knew, there were multiple branches of fuinjutsu. Most fuinjutsu users who are above level 5 are proficient in at least 2 of these areas.
Some of the fields in fuinjutsu were:
Sealing objects, sealing elemental jutsu, gravity manipulation, sealing chakra (As in sealing tailed beasts), space-time sealing, etc.
Each of these areas usually requires a different level of fuinjutsu understanding. Sealing objects is level 2, gravity is level 5, sealing tailed beasts and space-time sealing is 9.
Only a few in history were ever level 10, some of which were Kushina Uzumaki, Minato Namikaze, Tobirama Senju, Hashirama Senju, and Jiraiya. One noted level 11 fuinjutsu master would be Mito Uzumaki. Though deciding if one is level 11 or 10 is very hard, since for most, level 10 would be the pinnacle of Fuinjutsu, but some argue that there should be no limit to the level one can reach in Fuinjutsu.
Naruto himself mostly did physical exercises since he had a good healing factor and stamina, which helped him to improve at a rapid pace.
The hours flew by, and it quickly came time for lunch.
"Darn it! I have been going wrong about this the whole time!" Naruto shouted with frustration, grabbing at his hair. He was training in the basic manipulation of the Earth nature chakra. It was quite tricky since he had just recently gotten done with water natured chakra, and since earth counters water, it made it difficult for his training.
"I will just have lunch and start my training later," he mumbled, dispelling his old clones and creating new ones to take their place.
At Ichiraku's:
"Hey, old man! I need some miso ramen with pork!" Naruto shouted with enthusiasm.
"Miso coming up!" Ichiraku replied with a smile.
"Oh, Naruto! Didn't see you there for a moment," A voice came from Naruto's side. It was Iruka Umino, his academy teacher.
"Hey, sensei!" Naruto chirped.
"Naruto, did you get all of your materials for the next academic year?" Iruka asked.
"Yes, I did!" Naruto nodded vigorously.
"That's good to hear, Naruto," Iruka said with a smile. Naruto is his favorite student despite him being one of his worst.
"You should start studying more and get ahead of your class, Naruto. This way you can be good in class," Iruka recommended.
"Bah! I hate studying, sensei. What use is it for anyway?" Naruto said flabbergasted.
Iruka sighed. "Look here, Naruto, studying is important. What use are jutsus if you don't know how to use them? How can you leave the village for missions if you don't even know the location of the other villages nearby?" Irkua chastised him.
"Gah, sensei! You always give me a huge lecture on why studies are important. It's getting boring ya know?" Naruto replied with a huff.
Iruka sighed at Naruto's antics.
"You better pass, Naruto, or else you might be expelled," Iruka chastised.
"Alright, alright!" Naruto said, with a bit of annoyance.
The years passed, Naruto is now 12, and it was getting close to graduation time. (This Naruto didn't try out for early graduation because he knew that his chances of passing the second test were little to none. But it would increase drastically if he were teamed up with the clan heirs.) Naruto acted as an idiot throughout the years to keep the suspicions down. He didn't want to raise suspicions about himself on how he was improving despite no one ever teaching him properly. He did manage to make a few friends, notably Shikamaru, Kiba, Choji, and Shino.
At The Academy,
"Alright! Everyone assemble in a line according to your roll number. We are going to practice the 3 basic jutsus!" Iruka instructed.
Everyone stood in a line, but something felt off to Iruka.
"Hey, where is Naruto?" Mizuki voiced out.
"Gah! He has his exams in 3 days, and he is absent from practice!" Iruka said with a bit of anger.
"You continue with the jutsu practice, I will go search for him," Iruka said to Mizuki.
"Alright, be back soon," Mizuki replied with a smile.
A few minutes prior,
"Ha, I am doing all this in broad daylight and the ninjas still haven't caught me!" Naruto giggled to himself.
'Sorry, Dad, you must be a pervert for liking someone beautiful like Mom!' Naruto thought, painting his father's head with red paint to show that he had blood coming out of his nose as if he was a pervert.
"Oh! Looks like they are here now, time to run!"" He said to himself with a huge grin.
"HEY! GET BACK HERE!" A chunin shouted, chasing him.
"HA! You can't catch me!" Naruto shouted back.
A few other chunin joined the chase as time went on.
"Hey! Where is he?" One of the chunin questioned.
"I don't know, he took this right and then disappeared. There are no hiding spots as well, I guess he probably took that cut!" One of the other chunin voiced out, soon the chunin split up and left in different directions, hoping to catch him from all sides.
"Hehe, they didn't even suspect me of hiding here," Naruto said smugly, taking of the cover which was designed to mimic the fence which he was standing in front of.
"Naruto!" A voice shouted right beside him. It's a voice he recognised, after all, he had heard it nearly every day since he entered the academy.
"Oh, hey, Iruka sensei!" Naruto said nervously.
"What are you doing away from the class? You have the graduation exam in 3 days!" Iruka scolded.
"Come with me! You will have to clean up the mess after classes!" Iruka continued with his scolding.
At the Academy,
Most of the students there looked at Naruto and laughed at him for what he did to the Hokage monument.
"It's your turn to do the substitution, Naruto! Substitute yourself with the log there," Iruka instructed.
Naruto substituted himself with the log after keeping his hand in the ram seal.
"Good, you can do the substitution with just 1 seal. Now do the transformation jutsu," Iruka instructed.
Naruto did a hand seal, shouted "Sexy Jutsu!", and in a puff of cloud, he transformed himself into a naked female version of himself. Iruka and Mizuki were sent flying by the amount of blood gushing from their noses. Everyone watching laughed at Naruto's antics except for Sasuke Uchiha.
Iruka got up and gave a huge bonk to Naruto's head.
"NARUTO! Act seriously and transform yourself into me!" Iruka scolded with his big head jutsu.
Naruto quickly transformed himself into Iruka.
"Good, now do the clone jutsu," Iruka instructed.
"Bah! Why should I do that jutsu? It's not going to help me in battle!" Naruto shouted.
"But you need it to pass the upcoming finals!" Iruka shouted back.
Naruto grumbled and did the hand seals for the clone jutsu.
4 perfect clones appeared.
Everyone's eyes were wide. Naruto made actual clones, not the ones which looked like they would die at just a touch.
"Wha~ You got the clone jutsu down, good job, Naruto!" Iruka said with a smile.
'Ah! I trained my chakra control like crazy for this! It better have worked!' Naruto thought with a smirk.
"See, sensei! I got the jutsu down, you don't need to worry about me not passing!" Naruto replied.
'WHAT! HOW DID HE GET DOWN THAT JUTSU? He should have horrible chakra control!' Mizuki thought angrily.
5:00 pm,
'I finally got over level 9 in Fuinjutsu yesterday. I can say I can create a seal to help me use the nine-tails chakra,' Naruto thought.
'I also should dabble with space-time fuinjutsu as well, I need to get down the Hiraishin to make sure Konoha is still feared,' Naruto thought.
'The reason why Konoha was the strongest village in the Elemental Nations was mainly because of the top-quality ninjas they produced every generation. But this time around, there weren't many ninjas who could be considered strong ninjas in Konoha. Currently, only Jiraiya, Hiruzen Sarutobi, and Kakashi Hatake are known throughout the world for being strong. Gai could be as strong as the three, but he isn't known, and Danzo is just too hidden in the dark, heck, he probably won't even protect the village if it helped him become the Hokage,' Naruto thought with anger.
Naruto made a few clones to learn the Hiraishin. He only had access to the version Tobirama Senju made, since where Minato kept his library was quite unknown to Naruto, so he had to make do with what he had.
"Let's see, the Hiraishin creates small tears in space, and the marking will create a tear of its own at its end, so I jump through it, reaching at the end where the marker is, it also requires a high amount of speed to pull off since it requires high reaction time and quick hits to be utilised in real time battle," Naruto read to himself.
"And for the space time seal, I need to create my own version of it so it suits my chakra signature?" He read, confused.
"Oh my god, the theory is gonna kill me!" He yelled in horror. The book, which popped out of the scroll, was about 900 pages long. It was also big in terms of length.
"Shadow clone jutsu," Naruto whispered, holding a ram handseal.
4 shadow clones were made.
"Two of you will spend learning and discussing the space-time fuinjutsu, and you two will be spending time learning how to suppress a tailed beast chakra with just seals," Naruto instructed. He didn't want to use Wood Release for suppressing tailed beast chakra since he didn't plan on revealing it to anyone. From what some of his spies informed him, the Jinchuriki of the one-tailed beast is unstable, so precautions must be taken in case of an invasion. He wouldn't put it past the sand to invade Konoha since Konoha had cut a huge supply of their missions, depriving them of the necessary funding the village needed.
"Multi-shadow clone jutsu!" Naruto yelled out, creating 200 shadow clones. He is going to practice his Taijutsu with them. This way, he learns to be aware of all around him.
Day of the Graduation Test:
"Congrats, Naruto, you passed!" Iruka said with a smile.
"YAHOOO!" Naruto screamed on the top of his lungs with joy.
"Yeah, Naruto, congrats," Mizuki said with a thin smile.
Outside the building,
"Hey, Naruto," Mizuki greeted.
"Oh, sensei! What are you doing here?" Naruto asked. He was on the way to his apartment.
"Oh, I have to tell you something," Mizuki replied.
"What is it, sensei?" Naruto asked.
They were near a secluded part of the village where there were no prying eyes.
"Look here, there is a secret test for you to complete to actually become a ninja, Naruto. Right now, you merely passed to qualify for this test. You yourself had asked how those basic jutsus can actually help you in battle, right? This is why we are giving you a test to see what your real potential is. Others who we see potential in are also going to do a test, but it's going to be different for them," Mizuki said, turning to Naruto.
"Oh, what test would that be, sensei?" Naruto questioned. By now, Naruto knew what Mizuki was talking about, he planned to go with Mizuki's plan and get the scroll. This way, no one would question how he learnt the Shadow Clone Jutsu.
"For the test, you need to steal a scroll inside the Hokage tower. The scroll you need to retrieve would be marked as the "Scroll of Sealing". In it, you must learn a jutsu to pass," Mizuki instructed.
"Here, these are all the instructions you must follow to get the scroll," Mizuki said, giving him a scroll.
"Alright! I will get down a jutsu from it and pass!" Naruto replied with a huge grin.
"Good luck, Naruto," Mizuki said with a smile, which hid all of his malice.
Mizuki left in a body flicker, and Naruto did the same a few seconds later.
10:14 pm,
Training Ground 105,
"Hmm, looks like Iruka sensei is close by already," Naruto muttered. A few seconds later, Iruka had stopped in front of him.
"WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING?!" Iruka scolded Naruto.
"Mizuki told me to get this scroll. It's some made-up test to "test" my skills and actually promote me to genin. He gave me all the ways to sneak in and get the scroll," Naruto told Iruka calmly. This shocked Iruka.
"Hey, Naruto! Give me the scroll!" Mizuki said, appearing on top of a branch.
"Wait! Don't give him the scroll! He tricked you into taking the scroll for you!" Iruka shouted.
Naruto's right brow rose a bit.
"Give it to me, Naruto! You want to know the secret everyone kept from you?" Mizuki said, trying to lower Iruka's and Naruto's guard.
"MIZUKI! IT'S FORBIDDEN!" Iruka shouted with horror, evidence in his eyes.
Mizuki sent a huge Fuma shuriken at Naruto, aiming to kill.
Iruka pushed Naruto down and took the hit. This surprised Naruto because not many would take a hit for him.
"Why?" Naruto asked with surprise.
"Naruto, I was just like you when I was your age. I was all alone and fooled around to gain attention. I am sorry that I didn't help you when you really needed it," Iruka said with some tears leaking out.
Naruto himself was crying.
Naruto pushed Iruka off of him and glared at Mizuki.
"Multi-Shadow Clone Jutsu!" Naruto shouted, creating over a hundred clones, who all beat him up badly.
Some of the anbu appeared near Mizuki's prone form.
"I have apprehended the traitor, please take Iruka sensei to the Hospital," Naruto requested.
The Fish masked anbu nodded and ordered one of the other anbu to escort him.
Flash Back,
"Yo, old man, I need the scroll of seals!" Naruto barged in, asking for it.
"And why should I?" Hiruzen asked.
"Well, Mizuki told me he would make me an actual genin if I were to bring it to him, but I know it's a lie since only my jonin instructor could do that. So I think he might be a traitor," Naruto said.
Hiruzen thought about it.
"Alright, I will give you a substitution of the scroll of seals. you can use that as bait," Hiruzen replied.
"Alright! Oh, gramps! I need you to give me a jutsu for passing the test! You said you will give me one!" Naruto said, realising Hiruzen owed him a jutsu.
"Fine, here, this jutsu is called the shadow clone jutsu. It uses a lot of chakra, so it's perfect for you. It neither takes much skill nor much control." Hiruzen said, handing Naruto a small scroll
'If he is smart enough to use its other ability, he will get on track to getting strong quicker,' Hiruzen thought.
"Thanks, Gramps! I will get it down quickly!" Naruto said, running away.
How is the first chapter? Can you guys give me recommendations on how to write better?