Chapter 1 – Dreams

Yesterday was Naruto's birthday. He had turned five. Unlike other days where he would try and put on an act of being hyperactive to get noticed, today he was very still. It was because he had just heard the one thing that he hadn't expected to hear.

Naruto was a dreamer if anything. Sometimes he would get lost in the idea of him wearing the clothes of Jiji, proudly walking the streets of Konoha as the fifth Hokage. But all that meant nothing now.

"You can't use chakra, I'm sorry Naruto-kun."

Naruto's eyes were wide open when he heard the words leave Jiji's lips. He sat on a chair in front of the desk of the old man. Naruto looked into the brown eyes of his surrogate grandfather. More than anything he hoped to find a comical expression, but reality was different. Jiji wasn't laughing, waiting to tell Naruto that he was kidding. No, Jiji looked very different than usual. Jiji looked like he suddenly had more weight on his old shoulders.

"B-but why Jiji!?" Naruto yelled as tears slid down his smooth cheeks.

Jiji looked at him from his seat across the desk. "Naruto-kun, the human body is made of energy that we shinobi call chakra. Everyone has chakra and theoretically almost everyone can use it. The majority of the world can't perform ninjutsu because they have not been trained in the arts of chakra manipulation.

I said theoretically everyone because not everyone can manipulate chakra. There are some individuals whose chakra coils are blocked. It is not a defect, rather a genetic attribute passed on. Naruto-kun, you possess this genetic attribute.

I'm sorry."

Naruto couldn't believe what he was hearing. This couldn't be true. Everyone else in the world could use chakra, even civilians, but he couldn't? For the following seconds Naruto's world twisted around, he couldn't even hear the words that Jiji mumbled about him not being the only one. The only thing that mattered now was that he had to give up on his dream to become the Hokage.

"Naruto-kun?" Jiji's voice sounded shocked, but Naruto was still trapped in his mind.

"Naruto!"

"Naruto! Snap out of it!"

Naruto blinked and saw that Jiji held him by his shoulders. The look of being saddened had transformed into a look of shock and worry. He was confused, because one moment Jiji was sitting behind his desk, and the next he was right in front of him. He wondered what had just happened.

Moreover, something caught his eye. The entire room of Jiji was in upheaval. Papers were spread on the ground, nearby chairs had fallen down and the window behind Jiji was cracked. Several people with masks hiding their faces and kunai drawn stood behind Jiji. Naruto was absolutely clueless.

And then the world became hazy and dizzy. Jiji's worried look increased as darkness swept Naruto into a peaceful unconsciousness.

It was several days later when Naruto woke up in his apartment. He looked up at his ceiling. He couldn't remember what had happened. He only remembered hearing that he had to quit being a shinobi.

"I'm glad you're awake Naruto-kun," a familiar voice said from his left. Naruto turned his head and found out that it was Jiji.

He rose and sat on his bed, rubbed his eyes out and looked with a sad expression towards Jiji. "Jiji, what should I do now? I can't be a shinobi anymore," completely forgetting about having blacked out in Hiruzen's office.

Hiruzen was surprised. Naruto had apparently no knowledge of what had transpired in his office several days ago.

"Naruto-kun, you can still be a shinobi," he said finally with a hint of hope in his voice, "you don't have to give up."

"But Jiji, you said that I can't use chakra while everyone else can!" Naruto's eyes became wet again, tears threatening to fall.

Hiruzen looked around carefully, trying to avoid what had happened in his office. He could already feel small tremors underneath his feet. Naruto seemed not to be aware of what he was doing.

"Naruto-kun, there have been and still are shinobi in the ranks of Konoha that cannot use chakra, scarce in number they may be, but they are there, even a jonin," when Hiruzen said this, the boy's eyes seemed to show hope once again.

"But I don't think you need to worry about using ninjutsu Naruto-kun, you have something else, far more powerful," at the confused look of the boy of five, Hiruzen pointed around the room.

Naruto's eyes widened and his jaw lowered. His entire room was shaking. No, rather, his entire apartment was shaking, as if there was a small earthquake. Behind Jiji something fell down from a table and he could hear dishes breaking in the kitchen.

"That's all you Naruto-kun," Hiruzen said before putting his hand on the boy's head. He looked the boy of five straight in the eyes and said, "from this day onward you're going to be my apprentice."

And Naruto's heart filled with hope once again. The tremors stopped a moment later.

One month later

Naruto stood in the middle of a forest clearing. He wore dark pants, an orange sweater and a dark sleeveless flak jacket. A standard katana with a black handle lay rested in the holder on his back. The blade was made fit for someone his size. But Naruto wasn't here for sword training.

Several whizzing sounds came at him from different directions. Naruto had his brows furrowed in concentration. Someone sane would jump up, duck or make an inclination to deflect whatever was coming his way, but Naruto did something different. He yelled and grunted. Just before the shuriken could lodge into his abdomen and skull, they stopped in midair. With another grunt they fell down harmlessly on the grass beneath him.

"Jiji this is hard!" Naruto complained as sweat trickled down his forehead. Hiruzen appeared in front of him, this time not in his usual Hokage attire, but in his old jonin garbs which still fit him.

"Naruto-kun, stand up," Hiruzen said when he noticed that the boy had dropped to one knee.

To Hiruzen it had been a very interesting month to say the least. Naruto's new unlocked powers, which Hiruzen could only call telekinesis, were very strange and mysterious. Hiruzen understood that this new ability was fueled by one's mind. Whereas regular shinobi use hand seals, Naruto need only use his mind to control the objects around him. It took its toll from the five year old.

Sputtering with complains Naruto stood on wobbly legs. Jiji sure was a slave driver he thought. The past month Jiji had all but forced him to read books, train in the Sarutobi clan's tai- and kenjutsu, do countless amounts of jogging and when he was done with that, they were training his new abilities. It was all worth it though, he thought, at least now he could become a shinobi.

"Time to jog twenty times around Konoha, no buts, get going."

Naruto wondered if he should regret being Jiji's student. His legs were killing him. This was not what he thought training under the Hokage was going to be like.

Six months later

Ten shuriken were launched at him from any possible angle. Naruto blinked and a second later the sharp objects were floating in the air around him. He blinked once more and the shuriken fell down to the forest floor.

"Katon: Gokakyu no Jutsu!"

This time Naruto put two hands in front of him as a large circular wave of fire headed straight for him, incinerating the forest floor beneath its trajectory. Naruto grunted slightly as the fire suddenly stopped inches from his hands. With another grunt he forced the fire to change its course and head straight upwards into the sky. A trickle of sweat formed on his forehead.

"Good Naruto-kun, that was excellent," Hiruzen said having appeared behind Naruto. Hiruzen had his arms crossed over his chest. Naruto was making remarkable progress. They hadn't even trained together for a year. "Like father, like son," he thought sadly.

"So what now Hiruzen-sensei," Naruto had decided to replace jiji with something that sounded more respectful towards his teacher. They were training on a daily basis for the past six months. Of course maybe a book on shinobi ethics told him it would be wise to call your sensei, sensei, and not an old geezer.

"Jogging."

"Fifty times this time? Or a hundred?" Naruto had adapted quickly to the extreme and crazy cardio exercises that Hiruzen-sensei gave him.

"Fifty, you need to read up tonight too, tomorrow I'll be testing your fūinjutsu," strange, although Naruto could not even do the simplest of shinobi jutsu, he could perform fūinjutsu, and he was good at it, though not surprising considering his parents and heritage. It did leave Hiruzen wondering. He knew for a certainty that fūinjutsu required chakra as well.

Naruto nodded and went on his way. Training with Hiruzen-sensei was tough, but he could do things now that he could only dream of before.

One year later

Naruto sat in his apartment, leaning over a complex seal. Books, sealing papers and brushes lay all around the just turned six year old.

He was mumbling to himself. This seal was tough. It was something made by an advanced sealing master. He noticed that when he saw how precise and sharp the symbols had been written. Even though the seal was performed by a master, it wasn't a master level seal in itself. It was because of that, that Naruto said, "I've got it," fifteen minutes later. He put both hands on the seal. The words on the seal glowed white before the seal disappeared and an orange book appeared in its place.

Naruto raised his right eyebrow wondering what Hiruzen-sensei deemed so important for him to solve. Its contents must be very important. Hiruzen-sensei said something about "S –class secret, do not read under any circumstances". Gulping he read over the cover of the book. "Icha Icha Paradise?" Naruto questioned out loud, "must be made to look like an adult novel, the insides must be filled with S-class secrets," he mumbled.

Gulping as his curiosity got the better of him, Naruto turned to the first page, "Huh?" He turned to the second page. Still nothing. It wasn't until he had scanned over all the three hundred pages of the novel that he yelled "what!"

"What's wrong Naruto-kun?" Hiruzen asked the next day as Naruto handed him an orange book. In his mind, Hiruzen was mortified when he looked down to see the title of the novel. He had accidentally given Naruto a seal which held one of his favorite novels.

"Nothing, nothing at all!" Naruto said too quickly as he tried not making eye contact with his sensei.

"You didn't read the book did you?" Hiruzen said with cheeks reddening ever so slightly.

"What? Of course not, you said not to," but both sensei and student knew better.

Naruto had never known that a man so dignified as his sensei would be into those kind books.

Six years later

"I have to what? No I don't want to, absolutely not, no way sensei," Naruto said mortified.

"That wasn't a request, it was an order."

"The hell I am, no way," Naruto said with twitching brows. But he knew that the decision was already made, regardless of how much he cried and begged for it not to be.

"I want you to head to the academy and sit there with the graduation class until the teacher assigns you into a three man cell with a jonin instructor."