AN: Hey Guys, this is the first half of the first chapter of my new story. Please let me know if i should contine to write it or I'm terrible and should just quit. Any ways enjoy!

Wave country

A figure could be seen sitting on the high branch of a tree. The figure was resting his/her back against the trunk with hands crossed behind his head and legs spread out in the front. The figure was none other than Naruto, he had blond hair and blue eyes with a slightly handsome face, and his height was average for someone of his age. He was wearing a navy blue shirt with mesh shirt underneath it, black shinobi pants with weapons holster on his right leg and standard shinobi sandals. He was currently staring in the star filled sky. The surrounding forest was covered in a transparent mist and cool air was blowing through it.

With Naruto

Naruto liked his current surroundings, sitting high up on a tree, staring in the star filled night, misty surroundings and cool breeze. The peaceful setting helped him to calm his mind, which was currently a whirlwind of thoughts and various memories, he hated it when he got worked up like this and could not help but feel he was inferior when compared to his team-mates, especially Uchiha Sasuke and Uzumaki-Namikaze Arashi, who were calm and collected during tense situations, and he envied them for it. It also did not help that both of them were quite 'special',

'Special', his most hated word, he despised the word more than anything, it made his blood boil, it reminded him how he was fated to remain another normal and common shinobi like many other shinobi of Konoha, and there was a reason for it,

His parents were civilians who died during the Kyuubi's attack 12 years ago, they worked in a rented shop which sold various civilian accessories, and it was one of the places the Kyuubi's bijudama had struck, he had been only a month old and his mother had died protecting him by shielding him with her body while his father was blown away by the force of the attack. He was found by some shinobi beneath his dead mother and was placed in an orphanage where he grew up.

No, he did not hate Arashi for containing the Kyuubi but he disliked him for various different reasons.

He, like many other un-adopted children were admitted in the Shinobi Academy when they reached the age of six. It was cruel in many ways to simply shove young children, who could barely read, in the shinobi line of work but Konoha had been desperate at that time. Many ninja's had lost their lives during the attack and Konoha had to bring back its power by creating as many ninja's as fast as possible, it was vindictive but needed to be done.

He did not hate that decision, in fact, he liked it, as it helped him achieve his dream, his ultimate goal that he had not revealed to anyone, not even to his best friend, to become the Hokage. That is right, he wanted to become the Hokage one day, but as things were progressing on his side, it might be more of a daydream than an ambition,

One would ask why? Why would it be a day dream when he was a genin level ninja, on the team with the Uchiha heir, son of Minato Namikaze and Uzumaki Kushina, and the top kunoichi of his class, with their sensei being the famed Sharingan no Kakashi and even graduated in a class containing all the future heirs of the important clans of Konoha, why? Many people from outside of konoha would ask this, but only someone in his position could answer it, and it was simple, it was because he was not 'special'. He was a no name orphan with civilian parents and no shinobi heritage, the answer was that straightforward, that and when Konoha had so many 'special' people, why would anybody choose him?

There were so many special shinobi in Konoha who could have the title of the Hokage, like the Sannin Jiraiya, who was trained by the Sandaime Hokage, held the Toad summoning contract and trained the Yondaime. Senju Tsunade, who might not be in konoha presently, but she was the last of the feared Senju clan, the granddaughter and grandniece of the Shodaime and Nindaime respectively, she could easily be the Hokage if the Sandaime stepped down.

Coming to the younger shinobi who were 'special', Kakashi Hatake, the last living student of Minato Namikaze, he too could be a Hokage in some years and was already a prime candidate for the post. Next was the son of Sandaime Hokage, Asuma Sarutobi, ex-member of the elite group that guarded the Fire Daimyo, he was already praised as one of Konoha's top jonin.

Next was his generation of shinobi who held the most promise among all the current generations. Most if not all the heirs of various clans belonged to his age group. Therefore, why would people chose him over known prodigies like Uchiha Sasuke, famous as the last Uchiha in konoha, he was extremely arrogant with a huge ego plus superiority complex and always treated others all civilian shinobi of his age group as if they were beneath him and he always had a hoard of fan girls following him. The top most being Sakura Haruno. The next prodigy was Arashi Uzumaki-Namikaze, son of Yondaime and Uzumaki Kushina, Sasuke Uchiha's rival, jinchuriki of Kyuubi, Heir of the Legendary Uzumaki clan and konoha's golden boy, he was treated as the second coming of the Yondaime, was extremely arrogant, and with an ego as well as superiority complex comparable to Sasuke. He also had a fan club for him with Ino Yamanaka as its head and could always be seen hanging out with attractive girls.

Even though it was a fact that he was a member of team 7, he never believed it. He was placed on this team because 28 academy students had graduated from his class and he would have been left out, but on the last minute, it was decided the team 7 would be a 4-man team, it was clearly visible on the other teams member's face that they disliked that decision. Sakura was displeased because he might come in between her and Sasuke, Arashi and Sasuke looked at him he was just a burden at the same time treating him indifferently, Kakashi disliked it because he had to take care of another genin and he wanted to focus on Sasuke and his 'Sensei's son'. Overall, he just felt like a fifth wheel on the team.

It also did not help that he had only one true friend, Yakumo Kurama, who was his classmate. He had wanted to be on her team but sadly, she was assigned to some other team whose Jonin sensei was a genjutsu specialist (Not Kurenai) as Yakumo specialized in genjutsu.

These were some of the people who provided him with a challenge in his goal of becoming the Hokage. He knew it was possibly a daydream but what could he do? Establish another shinobi village in some lesser nation and become its leader, the idea was not repulsive, in fact, if he could, he would do it, he was somewhat loyal to konoha, true, but if he could not accomplish his dream here then he would try the particular idea.

Nevertheless, creating another shinobi village on his own? It was next to impossible, especially for someone like him, who was not a prodigy nor did he have any bloodline or special skills. He was sure that after some years, Arashi could do something like this by using his influence, the money his parents had left, his reputation as it was obvious that he would be very strong in the next few years as his parents had left him their jutsu, fuinjutsu, etc.

For creating a Hidden village you need people, shinobi, money, resources, infrastructure and the respective Daimyo's backing for providing missions. He doubted he would live until the age of 20, much less live long enough to gain fame and money that was the needed to be a leader. He knew it was cruel to think like this but he knew the truth; shinobi like him, especially someone who was not 'special' did not long last in this line of duty, much less gain a reputation. History was an example of this, all the Hokages that have ever lived were geniuses or had bloodlines or strong shinobi lineage or great teachers. The Shodaime and Nindaime were from the Senju clan with Shodaime having wood release and Nindaime Having High water affinity. Sandaime was from Sarutobi clan and had both the previously mentioned as his teachers. The Yondaime was a genius and had Jiraiya as his teacher. He had even spent hours in libraries to read about great Shinobi figures of the history, including other Kages. He doubted anyone from his class except him had even heard of Jinton (Dust release) Ninjutsu. All the Raikage's were blood relatives and had a strong shinobi lineage. There was little information on Shodaime and Nindaime Kazekages, but the previous and current Kazekage had powerful bloodlines. Little was known about Shodaime and Nindaime Mizukages as well but the Sandaime Mizukage was from the Hozuki clan and Yondaime was a Jinchuriki like Arashi. Similarly, the Shodaime Tsuchikage was from the Kimizuru clan, but surprisingly Mu, the Nindaime Tsuchikage was not from a clan or shinobi lineage but one of the greatest geniuses ever produced in Iwagakure. He developed the Jinton (Dust release) on his own and it became the only known Kekkai Tota, which he passed on to his successor Ryotenbin no Onoki (Onoki of Both Scales).

Sigh, 'I'm getting a headache by all this thinking' Naruto thought as he turned sideways in a more comfortable position, he disliked it when his thoughts started to get depressing but he couldn't help it, he continued to stare in space as his eyes soon glazed over as some memories hit him.

He remembered his days in the academy; they were not bad but were rather dull. He had been excited to join the academy at first but as days and months passed on, it became tedious. One of his major reasons for being excited about joining the academy was the chance to make new friends, however everything had gone downhill after a few months, and by the time he was eleven years old he had given up on things. There were many reasons for it, the first and foremost being blatant partiality, teachers focused more on students from clans than the whole class and considering the fact that his class had clan heirs, the biasing was particularly bad. It was only after Iruka-sensei was assigned to their class that the phenomenon was reduced to bearable levels.

The second being his 'classmates' themselves, while he did not outright hate anyone but he sure as hell disliked many, mostly the clan heirs, he had picked on the reality quickly that if he was among the popular group of students, only then will he have any chance to befriend others, needless to say, it had backfired on him, badly. He had decided to make friends with the various clan heirs in his class to become popular, but when he actually went to give it a try that he realized it was harder than it looked. When he had approached Sasuke and Arashi, he was brushed aside and both of them did not even spare him a glance, but not before Arashi successfully reminded him of his place with a rather scathing remark,

'Heh, you are nobody, why should I waste my time talking to a waste of space like you, don't you know who I am? I am Minato Namikaze and Uzumaki Kushina's son, know your place commoner… and don't you dare to approach me again' he had said with a superior smirk,

It had cut him deeply, deeper than anything had, but he had held himself together, but after that encounter, he had been afraid to approach the rest of his targets, what if they turned out like this too?

After a month of thinking and some careful observations, he had deduced that he would have to refrain from approaching some of them. Ino Yamanaka topped the list along with Sasuke and Arashi as she was a diehard fangirl and would probably think that he was hitting on her which could end badly, next on the list was Hyuga Hinata, she was too shy and lacked confidence at the same time having a konoha sized crush on Arashi, Kiba Inuzuka was next, he was too arrogant and egoistic to boot and a pervert.

The only people he deemed approachable were Shino Aburame, Shikamaru Nara, Choji Akimichi and Yakumo Kurama. He had tried to befriend the three boys mentioned and it was partially successful, Shikamaru and Choji were friendly towards him but both of them were lazy and not much like friends to him, Shino had remained neutral towards him at first but had opened up slightly with time, it was not friendship, more like partners in logical reasoning.

The last one on his 'Safe to Approach' list was Yakumo Kurama; it was mostly because she was the most normal out of all clan heirs at the same time being among the more popular girls. Unlike his previous method, the one he used to approach others, he had settled on using a different approach. It was mostly because he did not want to look or sound like rest of the guys who had advanced on her, which was mostly to get her to become their girlfriend. He had spent days going to the library to read on the subject 'How to Approach girls for Friendship' and had to admit that Konoha Public library contained some interesting reading material. He had implemented some of the basic ideas like 'Giving her a small smile when spared a glance' or 'helping her with small things', etc and lo it worked like a charm. Today she was his best friend and vice-versa, though it did attract a lot of unwanted and bad attention from various boys from his as well as other classes, mostly the ones from rich families or whose parents were in the council. Most of the times a simple warning from Yakumo was enough to make them back up but sometimes he had almost been cornered when he was alone-

'Swish'

A sudden sound caused Naruto to instantly jerk from his laying position on the tree to stand on the branch in a taijutsu stance and with a kunai in hand, he looked around to see any disturbances or someone who was making those disturbances,

'I know I heard something moving' he looked around in the surrounding trees and on the ground, but spotted nothing unusual, straining his sense he tried to find anything abnormal which resulted in failure too.

Lowering his guard slightly he gave out a tired sigh,

'It must be a small animal or something…thinking about all the depressing thoughts must have started affecting me, I think'

Pocketing his kunai, he jumped down on the ground and started walking in a random direction. Their mission in Nami no Kuni was over and he did not feel like spending the night with those two arrogant assholes in a single room.

Where was he? Right, many a times he had been cornered by those punks, but as Naruto was a sincere academy student who took his training seriously, he was able to escape without much trouble. Beating them up would not have been a bad option but he had no interest in attracting the attention of some rich and politically strong father.

Other than those troubling boys, his final year went smoothly.

Then came the graduation exams, there was nothing special about them, the results were almost identical to all the previous tests.

Sasuke and Arashi had tied for the first place in weapon skills, taijutsu, and ninjutsu while Sakura scored the maximum in written exam. He stood among the average scorers in written exam, above average in taijutsu and ninjutsu and decent in weapon skills. He had not anticipated that Sasuke and Arashi would do so well, as the second ranker was far behind those two when total scores were taken into consideration, but after seeing it firsthand how fast they were in their taijutsu spar, the difference between himself and them became more apparent.

After the exams, the results were declared the next day and as he had expected, Yakumo got better overall score than him. He had sulked a bit after that but to his surprise Yakumo had just hugged him and assured him that scores did not decide the worth of a ninja nut their field performance does, and after that, they had a lunch in a restaurant to celebrate the fact they finally became an official ninja of Konoha.

The team placements were scheduled a week after the graduation so he along with Yakumo spent those days training, especially in genjutsu as Yakumo pointed out that he had no real experience with genjutsu as he was not from a clan and suffice to say Yakumo had some real genjutsu skills. Of course, nothing is perfect as from the first day after the exam, Yakumo was approached many boys for a date, lunch or dinner to celebrate, mostly the ones she had turned down previously, which she shot down instantly. Naruto simply stayed in the background as this happened not wanting to attract attention, though he would have acted if he felt that she needed help, she knew that and thanked him for that.

He, after a few more turned down offers, had casually asked her about her clan's reaction to the amount of unwanted attention she was getting, especially from influential families and got a simple laugh as him answer. He had been disappointed but it quickly went away when she asked him to sit down near her as she explained how her clan worked. Apparently, small clans like the Kurama clan did not have a council like the other big clans like the Hyuga, Aburame, etc and the clan head possessed all the power. She also explained that even if her clan was small, they had a seat in the Konoha council and had sway in the village matters and had various business establishments in the whole fire country.

As far as Naruto knew, Yakumo was the only surviving member of the main family and had inherited the whole of Kurama clan's Kekkei Genkai so that indirectly as well as directly made her the Clan heiress. Reaching the surprising conclusion, he had turned towards her with a pale look which she returned with an amused smile and a wink.

'Hmm…good times' he thought with a small happy smile.

Alright, I know its very small but I need people's views on it, you can just do it in the reviews or PM me.

Ja Ne!

Anbustar16