Chapter 1
Naruto, worked up and needing a release, approached a tree in one of the ninja training grounds and just started going to town on it, punching and kicking. After a few minutes, he fell into a rhythm, as always, and his mind cleared, only thinking about the next punch or kick.
The people of Konoha, the people he adored and just wanted to protect, wouldn’t spare him a glance because they were too afraid to see the fact that he wasn’t the Kyuubi. Nobody would look at him, talk to him, nothing.
He learned about being a jinchuuriki a few years back, when he was about nine. A civilian was taunting him, calling him Kyuubi, a demon, a monster, and many other things, and it kind of clicked for him, he was the poor bastard that the Fourth Hokage sealed the Kyuubi into. Naruto felt a bit bad for the old fox, but unless given enough information to change his opinion on the Kyuubi, he wasn’t going to like it.
Naruto was almost completely sure that if the Old Man hadn't outright ordered not to lay a hand on him, he would have been attacked constantly.
Of course, a chunk of citizens did decide to go against that order in the cover of the night, but even that was better than being completely ignored at least they looked at him. It didn’t even matter that it was with rage or hatred, they were acknowledging him, though, he didn’t take those hits lying down.
To prolong the interaction as long as possible, he learned to duck and slip punches, forming an iron defense, just so somebody would look at him for more than 20 seconds. He was no masochist, but he learned to crave a good fight eventually, looking forward to the rush of countering and dodging blows and the acknowledgement that followed it.
In the end, anger was better than ignorance to Naruto. Noise would always be preferred to silence. When things got too quiet, Naruto felt an emptiness that made him almost glad that he had the Kyuubi, because even if it were the cause of all the hatred, all the abuse, all the coldness towards him. It also meant that there was at least another creature with him
When Naruto learned about ninjas and how they not only fought with their bodies, but also with their chakra, with their entire beings, he was more intrigued than he had ever been in years. Training and fighting, or sparring, were the only places Naruto could really think clearly, when he wasn’t training, his head was always up in the clouds, thinking about wherever his mind took him, but as soon as he stepped foot onto the training grounds, his crystal blue eyes sharpened, showcasing intelligence in normally blank eyes.
He spent hours upon hours punching holes into trees with his hands and feet, he even researched books on chakra, he despised reading, and managed to unlock his before his time at the academy. He was about to graduate from the academy, though he could have graduated years ago, he just never bothered to show how bright he was. The teachers would have came up with an excuse to keep him from moving upwards.
This year though, he finally passed his written test; as always, he excelled at the physical and ninjutsu portions of the test, no thanks to the academy, his chakra control was at best mediocre, but he had managed to catch a chunin being taught the Shadow Clone Jutsu, and knowing that he had huge, almost never ending, amounts of chakra, managed to copy it, after a few hours of practice.
He managed to switch the Clone Jutsu with the Shadow Clone Jutsu instead, if the teachers had noticed, they didn’t say anything, coldly telling him that he had passed and tossing him his headband. Iruka, being the only person who ever bothered talking to him, smiled warmly and congratulated him, offering to take him out for ramen, which he, being Naruto, accepted.
He was generally a calm, laid-back, sometimes aloof boy, but sometimes the indifference from the village took a toll on him, resulting in him needing to beat the shit out of some trees. Naruto loved nature, he really did, but sometimes, he needed a punching bag. Naruto was too broke to buy a punching bag. Mother Nature was free. You can put two and two together.
Naruto trained to the point where he got one of those montages where the sun fades out into the moon, that’s how long he was at it. He kept pounding away at the trees until he could relax a bit. He had nobody to talk to about what was going on because nobody was ever there during his times of need.
Whenever one of rare occasions that one of the villagers turned on him and tried to get physical occurred, he had to learn to defend himself through trial and error. No one was there to guide him. When Naruto damn near killed himself trying to learn the Shadow Clone Jutsu, no one was there to carry him home. The one that stung the most though, was when Naruto came home to an empty house, void of any sort of warmth or love.
With one final punch, Naruto let out a deep sigh. He was calm again. Other than learning about the typical ninja things, chakra, taijutsu, ninjutsu, genjutsu, etc., Naruto also learned that a clear head and an open mind could take you a long way. If you let your emotions reign over you freely, you not only compromise yourself, but potentially the others around you.
Naruto rolled out the kinks in his shoulders from the hours of punches, then he shoved his hands in his pockets and strolled back down the path to his apartment complex. Generally, the civilians wouldn’t touch him with a ten foot pole, so Naruto had no worries about being out late at night.
Most of the fights he had gotten into on the streets were with either drunks, on the day of the Kyuubi attack’s anniversary, or when he started antagonizing them. Even then, the brawls weren’t super common, once a week at most, but that was with some serious instigating on his part. Don’t blame him for wanting a fight; it was in his blood at this point. His hands were rated E for everyone.
Naruto finally got to his complex and walked up the stairs and onto his floor. He went into his apartment and made sure to lock the door behind him. No matter how cool Naruto liked to believe he was, the idea of a demon creeping into his apartment and eating him in the middle of the night creeped him out and he wanted to avoid that. Oh, and also to avoid break-ins.
Naruto checked the time, it was 8:30, he missed dinner. ‘Damn, that sucks, now what am I supposed to eat.’ Naruto thought, wondering if he should make dinner and just eat super late, or if he should just suck it up. He shrugged, walked to his bedroom, and yeeted himself onto his bed. 5 minutes later, he was out cold.
The next day, Naruto woke up and checked the time, it was 5:30 in the goddamn morning. What was he supposed to do for the next two hours before he needed to get to the academy? On the bright side though, he was getting his genin team today. Naruto rolled out of bed, literally, he took quite the tumble, got up and went about his day.
He went to the bathroom and did what he needed to do, then he decided to try and be semi productive and do some situps and pushups to start his day off good, he did them, but he was considerably more grumpy afterwards. Note to self, don’t wake up earlier than necessary, Naruto commented in his head.
After that, he went to the kitchen and got out some eggs, made sure they were in-date, and proceeded to fry them. He didn’t really feel like making anything better and he wasn’t willing to test God on whether or not he’s going to burn down the kitchen making food.
Naruto sat down on his table, summoned some shadow clones, and proceeded to have a lovely meal shooting the shit with himself. Naruto checked the time, it was 7:00. Naruto let out a sigh, he wasn’t going to purposefully go to hell-on-earth early, no matter what day it was. Naruto decided he was just going to lay down on the floor and do nothing for 30 minutes, he didn’t know what else to do.
Turns out the floor was very boring and not very comfortable, so Naruto decided to get up, again. He let his head hang, fresh out of things to do inside his apartment, and decided to leave. He grabbed his stuff for school and a black snapback with Konoha’s crest in orange and threw it on. He would probably take a nap and the hat would make a good cover, it also was just a good hat, so that helped.
Naruto, rocking a backwards hat with his hands in his pockets, strolled down the street to the academy. When he finally got into his classroom, he checked the time, it was 7:15, classes start at 8. Nobody was there except Iruka.
Iruka either didn’t acknowledge he was there, or he didn’t notice him standing there.
Naruto cleared his throat, trying to get Iruka’s attention. Iruka finally looked over, looking a bit surprised to see him there so early, while he generally wasn’t late to class, Naruto was never early.
“Naruto! What are you doing here so early?” Iruke asked, still surprised to see him, as Naruto despised the mornings.
“If I knew, Iruka-sensei, I would tell you,” Naruto responded, still a bit pissed at being up so early. Iruka just chuckled a bit at the grumpy boy and turned back to his work.
Naruto strolled up the steps and settled into a seat. He did the reverse Ash Ketchum and turned his hat forwards with the visor hanging down low over his eyes. He had 45 minutes til class, he wasn’t going to be bored out of his mind waiting. He leaned back into his seat and managed to doze off, well, until Sakura and Ino came into the classroom screeching at each other, fighting at the doorway.
Naruto yawned and turned his trusty hat to be backwards again. I fricking love this hat, Naruto thought, after waking up a bit from his super satisfying nap. He looked around and saw he was sitting next to no other than one Sasuke Uchiha. He jerked his chin up his head in acknowledgement and the Uchiha returned it. The two of them got along decently, Naruto didn’t really care about anyone in the academy too much and Sasuke just wanted to be left alone, so they made a right pair.
It didn’t hurt that, though Sasuke was still the Rookie of the Year, Naruto consistently beat him in all of the physical aspects of class, so Naruto had Sasuke’s respect.
Another kid Naruto was pretty friendly with walked by, Shikamaru. As he walked down the steps to get to his seat next to Choji, he turned to Naruto and said, “Good to see ya here, Naruto.”
Naruto replied with a slight smile saying, “Good to be here, glad you made it too, pal.” Shikamaru just gave his signature lazy smirk, went to his seat and put his head down on his desk.
Naruto looked up at the clock, seeing that it was finally 8 and that class was going to start soon. His lips quirked again, he was kind of excited to see who he was going to be on a team with. As long as they weren’t too annoying, he didn’t mind. Though, if he had to pick one person to be on a team with, Shikamaru wouldn’t be too bad. The boy just wanted to relax, Naruto could understand that.
Iruka droned on about how he was so proud of them and how he wanted them to succeed as ninjas yadda yadda yadda, Naruto yawned, he loved Iruka like a brother, he really did, but dammit, he was so bored.
Then Iruka got to the good stuff; genin team assignments.
“Okay, the moment you all have been waiting for; your teams.” Iruka said, a warm smile lighting up his face. Iruka listed off the first six teams, people Naruto didn’t really know. Must be background characters that no one cares about, Naruto thought.
“Okay, Team 7: Uchiha Sasuke, Haruno Sakura, Uzumaki Naruto,” Iruka said.
“YES! SUCK ON THAT INO!” Sakura said, mentally flipping Ino the bird. Sasuke wouldn’t like it if she did that, it was unladylike. Ino growled and tackled Sakura and they fought like the wild animals they are for their precious Sasuke. Naruto sighed, there goes his dreams of napping and peace.
He turned to Sasuke and said, “Well, I guess we’re working together.”
Sasuke just shrugged and went back to brooding. Naruto went back to staring off into space. Sakura and Ino though, were still going at it like hellcats. Iruka took a deep breath and screamed, “OKAY YOU TWO! GET IN YOUR SEATS!”
The two spitfires literally leaped back into their seats like they were taking cover from something. Sasuke and Naruto traded a glance that practically screamed WTH. Iruka named the rest of the teams and nobody else looked particularly happy with the exception of Sakura. Sasuke looked downright miserable, then again, when did he not. Well this should be interesting, Naruto thought.
Class was dismissed and the Three Musketeers- er wrong show- the three genin were waiting on their jonin, a man named Hatake Kakashi. After waiting for an hour, Naruto got bored and decided to take another nap. Sakura tried to scold him, but after a cold glare she shut up.
Sorry Sakura, I’m not normally this mean, but don’t try to get in the way of my naps or my training or you shall know true pai- oops, wrong person- or you will suffer the consequences. That was a warning. Naruto said in his head. He shook his head and pulled his cap over his eyes again. After a few minutes, he was out cold. It took years to learn how to fall asleep that fast. He was eternally grateful for the skill.
Two hours later.
Kakashi was walking down the streets with his hands in his pockets. He had made the genin wait long enough.