Well this is strange, even for me; publishing a story a day before an update/publish day but hey…uhhh…

This story was thought up by my great friend Kilare T'Suna a while ago, possibly even months ago, and I back then I didn't feel up to writing it cuz it didn't resonate to me for some reason. He brought it up a few days ago and I guess I felt something. With that said, thank you for letting me write it, I appreciate the living blob out of you.

Now, a peak into the story; trying my best to stay within the requirements he set I made Naruto a holder of a unique bloodline and summoning contract, the name of the story should clue you in on what the bloodline and summons are. I took the usual route of the village council declaring that Naruto be killed but he isn't killed due to some special intervention from some people we least expect. I don't want to say anymore or it'll spoil the story so I'll just let you read and enjoy. Drop a review when you're done!

I DO NOT OWN NARUTO

CHAPTER 1

"Class, I would like you to welcome a new student," Iruka said as he clapped for the children's attention. He turned to the door and a widely smiling child of eight years old marched into the class and stopped directly in front of the teacher's desk, standing at attention and puffing out his chest like a soldier. No part of his body was uncovered, besides his face; he was in a long sleeved dark shirt and trousers with black sneakers and a silver beanie, allowing only a few flecks of blonde hair to peak out from the sides and a fringe neatly falling down over his left eye till it stopped near his chin. He also had two four inch horns had sprouting out from the sides of his head and curving upwards into sharp points, passing through his silver beanie neatly. His hands, covered in black gloves with metal plates on the back, clenched nervously as he bowed deeply to his classmates and straightened up again, smiling. The boys horns drew their attention but a few that managed to wrench their eyes away noticed he was almost dangerously pale from the skin they did see (his face), but his pale face was smooth and without any horrific blemish, like delicate porcelain ceramics. His exposed right eye was bright blue with small traces of golden brown sparkling in his eyes, mesmerizing a few of them, a small nose and lips with three whisker marks on his cheeks that drove a few girls over the edge. Iruka chuckled to himself at the boys formality and said, "Please introduce yourself," for all his years as a teacher he only knew Hyuugas to be as polite as the boy in front of him.

The horned child cleared his through and spoke, "my name is Naruto," he received deafening silence as the other children leaned in to listen to more and Naruto perspired a little before he turned to Iruka, who motioned for him to go on, "I am eight years old…" he awkwardly trailed off and a female at the front with bright pink hair asked loudly.

"Don't you have a surname? Your name can't just be Naruto,"

"Naruto is the name I've been using for as long as I could remember," Naruto replied.

"Why haven't I seen you before?" a civilian student questioned the mysterious boy.

"I've been living with my grandfather outside of Konoha," he replied formally.

"Grandfather? Don't you have parents to live with?" the same boy chortled.

Naruto's smile only twitched unperceptively but stayed on his face, "I don't have parents,"

Iruka interrupted before another question could be launched, "you can ask him more questions at your free time, for now I want you to make Naruto feel welcome," he looked around the class and pointed to a desk at the far back, the only free one, that didn't have any other person paired with it, "go and sit there. If you have any problems don't be afraid to come and meet me,"

"Thank you, Iruka-sensei," Naruto muttered as he bowed again to the man.

The boy in all black and silver marched towards his seat but stopped when a leg shot out to trip him, he looked down at the appendage with his head cocked in confusion, trying to figure out why a person would want to make him fall. He furrowed his eyebrows and looked at the black haired boy, who looked back at him defiantly, and blinked in silence. Naruto stayed there, rigid and bewildered, drawing the eyes of everyone in the class until a girl across the lane kicked the black haired boy's leg away and said, while blushing madly.

"Don't mind him Naruto-kun," Naruto allowed the smile to slip back onto his face before he nodded in appreciation and marched to his designated seat. The class proceeded after he did.

He was one of those children that seemingly dropped out of nowhere. No one knew who he was, no one knew where he came from; he just appeared in class one day and introduced himself as Naruto.

Nothing else.

At first glance, and even after hearing his mature-for-an-eight year old voice, more than a few girls instantly fell in love, enough for them to form a separate faction of fan girls than Uchiha Sasuke. More than a few girls kept sending him bashful looks and batting their eyelashes, while he looked back, still smiling but with his head cocked to the side in confusion. He didn't bring with him any books on the first day, so he didn't jot down anything, just perching his arms on his desk and sitting rigidly. After the first thirty minutes of girls randomly peering at him he chose to ignore them to focus on what the teacher was saying.

He was not a loner like the Uchiha or a hyperactive creature like Kiba but he had a sort of innocence reverberating around him that attracted people. During breaks most of the class had swarmed over to his desk and bombarded him with questions, and he answered them to the best of his knowledge, but what they noticed was that he did not have a good grasp on expressing himself, both physically and emotionally. His budding fan club found it more and more endearing when he answered any obvious verbal jab with a smile on his face and with honesty that could one day kill him. He called a pig a pig and a pen a pen with the brutal honesty of an Aburame and with the swift brutality of a Hyuuga, and they suspected that he didn't know that his honesty could be insulting but it just added to his general adorableness. The boy was treated as a spectacle, with his sharp horns being the thing that drew their eyes, his cat-like whiskers coming after; his paleness following after and lastly was his smile, never once wavering under their scrutiny.

Naruto was an average student. He didn't resume school at the start of the session but in the middle, so when Iruka took a test to revise what he had taught that morning he scored a fair eight out of ten. The mystery about it was that he was obviously smart; with the way he eloquently spoke and the frequency he answered questions in the class when he was specifically called to. There was a spark of genius in his eye those in the Nara clan had but without the laziness. In the physical aspect of the class, Iruka noticed that Naruto deliberately allowed those he sparred against him to tag him and also deliberately drew out the fight before winning or drawing. The teacher chose to observe the child for the rest of his stay in school; the school headmaster had only informed him of Naruto that day and had classified the boy as too important for files on him to be stored with his class teacher, which was Iruka in Naruto's case, so the headmaster was the one that stored his record.

Iruka did not even get to see Naruto's general report; his doctors report, aptitude test, parent's/guardian's permission slip or his birth certificate. He was just told that Naruto was the relative of a very important person that had paid extra money to make sure Naruto's schooling isn't sabotaged.

It disturbed the academy teacher to no end.

As he graded the classes pop quiz he frowned when he saw that Naruto had rubbed out two correct answers and left them blank. He spied out of the window and spotted Naruto hanging upside down of a tree branch, with his hands dangling down and listening to Kiba talk about something. The circle of friends laughed boisterously and he noticed that Naruto looked at them for a few seconds before he too joined in, almost as if he didn't know when to laugh or not.

Strange…

At the end of the class, the students flooded out of the doors towards their homes and the black clad child walked in the middle of a sea of students, his long horns separating him from the rest. It went against his code as a teacher to stalk his students after class hours, it'll be scandalous to do that, but looking at the horned boy every passing second made warnings go through his head. The child was hiding something and he needed to find out what; first he would have to inquire the headmaster and coax a little information out of him. His thoughts were drawn away from the enigmatic child by Hinata, who stammered quietly a few questions she was too shy to ask during class.

Meanwhile, Naruto barely managed to slip away from a few students before they dragged him to their parents. His back hugged the wall of the back of the academy as he tried to steady his breathing; he grasped his chest, directly over his heart and frowned in confusion at the way his heart beat rapidly at the idea of meeting his classmates' parents. He didn't know why but he felt panicked at the thought of an older person he wasn't familiar with scrutinizing him. He breathed in raggedly and released it, perspiring not from heat but from a fear that gripped him that he did not understand. He peaked around the corner and ignored them when they called his name, until they gave up and started leaving the school grounds with their parents, who were just as curious, and afraid, to meet the 'cool horny kid'. The boy slipped out from his hiding spot and slinked out of the academy gates, he felt a few eyes on his back as he exited but shrugged them off nonchalantly.

Naruto lived in the residential district in a swanky apartment stocked with the latest gadgets and filled to the brim with more food he could know what to do with. His apartment building contained only five apartments but the rent to stay for a month could have bled any normal person dry, but Naruto's grandfather wasn't just any normal person; the man had singlehandedly paid for five years and six months, with proper maintenance from the buildings engineers and a window of opportunity for Naruto to have rights to lodge complaints if he ever found something out of place. The apartment building was highly secured, with only a key card allowing in the owners of the apartments and key cards letting them into their rooms; the key cards had been created by seal masters of the highest quality. The doors were made out of solid wood, nothing besides an elephant could smash through, and the walls were also thick enough to block out sounds from their neighbours but thin enough for the room not to be blistering hot, though at the same time there was an air conditioner in each apartment room in case it ever got that hot. Though the distance between his apartment building and the school was far, his grandfather had said that he wanted Naruto to associate with as many people before he returned, so he had to walk through the clan district, brush the side of the market district, trek through restaurant road, pass inside the 'snobby rich' street until he finally got to the residential district located far inside Konoha. He had the money to take a carriage to and from the academy but he had been given specific orders not to.

The boy kept his smile in place, unwavering under the gawking looks he got from the people he passed. Some lingered and sent him looks of disgust at the simple fact that he was different, while others looked on briefly before going about their business. The boy didn't see any of them as a threat, even the squads of ANBU tailing him, so he didn't bother trying to act tough, he didn't even care when three pairs of hands grabbed him and pulled him into an alleyway, slamming him against a wall. Naruto huffed but still smiled at his aggressors as they circled him with hostile intentions in their eyes and posture. He remembered one to be the boy that had tried to trip him on his way to his desk, he still didn't know why but he had filed it away as a question he would ask his grandfather.

The black haired boy was flanked by four other boys and one girl with light brown hair. Two blocked the alley with their bodies and the boy, who was the apparent leader of the gang, stomped to Naruto and poked the boy's chest, unnerved by Naruto's fixed smile but puffing his chest to seem bigger than the boy.

"You think you're so cool, with your horns and clothes but you're just a freak!" he cracked up and his friends joined in, laughing childishly. Naruto creased his smooth forehead in thought before he said.

"I don't remember trying to act 'cool'" this cut their laughs off short.

"When I'm done with you, you'll remember your place," he punched to Naruto's face but the horned child tilted his head to the side slightly so the boy's fist slammed into the wall with a resounding crack, signifying that he broken his fingers. The boy lurched away and grasped his hands, screaming in pain and frantically yelling at his friends, "What are you waiting for? Beat him up!"

They charged at Naruto, yelling war cries, while the boy stood in place, trying to understand the situation, "you are attacking me, are we not allies?" his hands remained by his side and his smile remained as he smoothly stepped aside for the girl to collide with the wall and fall back into a dead faint after painfully smacking against the solid brick wall.

"We're not your allies, ugly," a boy said as he threw a crude kick at Naruto, the horned boy slide and at the same time tripped another boy, bringing both together in a horrific clash of limbs.

"If we are not allies then I have to dispatch you before you become a threat to Konoha," Naruto's smile cleared from his face and he grabbed the last boy by his shoulder, driving his right knee into his abdomen and throwing him into a wall. His head smacked against the brick wall and he slowly slumped down, blood painted the wall as he fell down. Naruto flicked his hands to the side and a pair of kunai spiralled into his hands from his sleeve, he blurred towards the leader of the gang, his face stoic and emotionless, and was about to stab his blades into the other child's eyes before his weapons clashed against a katana, wielded by a purple haired woman in a cat ANBU mask.

"That's enough, Naruto,"

The boy regarded her with a quick flick of his eye until he remembered who she was. He smiled his usual fake smile and twirled the knives in his hands, allowing them to disappear in his sleeves. The woman hesitantly dropped her weapon but didn't sheathe it. She stepped back cautiously and used her fingers to feel for a pulse on the bleeding boy, sighing when she found one. She signalled for a few ninjas to take the child to the hospital and Naruto watched on in silence. Two more ANBU led the other injured children away while one landed from the ledge in a crouch, before standing.

"Wasn't that a little too much?" Dog asked and Naruto wrinkled his eyebrows.

"I don't understand, they were not allies and so they should not be given mercy,"

Cat looked at her captain, then back to Naruto, "they are our allies,"

"Then why did they say they were not my allies," he tilted his head to the side cutely and the purple haired woman forced down the urge to pinch his cheeks.

"They were trying to intimidate you," she supplied as she sheathed her weapon after her captain commanded her to by sign.

"I still don't understand…" why did he have this burning sensation in his chest? Why did he feel sad that he had almost killed a comrade? His training never even hinted towards understanding emotions; he was just taught to be the best fighter.

"How about going back home to think about it?" Dog proposed as he eyed the child suspiciously, his posture rigid and ready if Naruto pointed at him with his horns. Naruto bowed politely and marched away from them, "does Hokage-sama really trust that kid?" Cat shrugged and began scrubbing the wall of the blood with a dirty rag while her superior watched, "he seriously wanted to kill that kid because he said he wasn't an ally,"

"He was strong too," Cat added lowly as she poured water from her bottle onto the wall and continued scrubbing, "I could feel it when our weapons met. He could have broken my katana if he pushed for longer but he stopped when I got to him in time," he used one hand to unsheathe her trusty blade to show two small chips in the blade where the two kunai sliced in. Dog took the weapon and examined it carefully.

"Didn't you just get this back from Higuarashi for maintenance?" she nodded and used a minor earth jutsu to shift the ground over the watered down blood on the ground. It was best that no one found out that someone had almost been killed there, especially because it was the Kyuubi jinchuriki who had just been seen after eight years of absence, "I'll report this to Hokage-sama, maybe he can rethink his decision,"

Cat suddenly rounded on him, "so that what? We kill him? Don't you think that'll be a waste of potential? You just saw what he could do, academy students or not that is not something you should just extinguish," after her little rant she ducked her head and added, "sir,"

Kakashi stared at her in silence for a few seconds before he chuckled and patted her shoulder, "relax, relax~. I'll report this to Hokage-sama but not because I want him out of the village, but because its protocol,"

The woman's lips twitched upwards into a small smile under her mask and she snapped into a salute, "understood, Dog-senpai,"

The reason Naruto had been able to drive most of the ninja populace to suspect him was not only because of his status as jinchuriki.

On the day he had been born the council had called for his execution, the Sandaime was driven into a corner by their demands and when information leaked to the populace of Konoha that same night by and unknown civilian. Age had weakened the old man's resolve and he fell under the villages call for the infants head, the Sarutobi had scheduled for Naruto's execution for midnight but in a dramatic turn of events Naruto disappeared that night before harm could get to him. The Sandaime had listened to ways for Naruto's safety to be safeguarded and the legacy he represented to be nurtured but he still fell under the bloodthirsty calls of the citizens of the village. The Uchiha clan head had said that he and his clan would resign and leave Konoha forever if Naruto's blood ever stopped pumping through his body, the Kurama clan had joined in and pledged this as well and the Aburame clan joined in and vowed that if the infant Namikaze was harmed in any way they would leave the village and never return. Suspiciously enough, it was member of these clans that watched over Naruto, with a few other ninjas, before his scheduled execution. The Sandaime didn't look too much into it and announced to the village that the Kyuubi holder had vanished without a trace. Life moved on, nearly everyone forgot about the Kyuubi jinchuriki.

Only the ninjas tied his hair and his whiskers together with the child they wanted to kill years ago and suspicion returned. The only thing keeping them from ambushing the boy and delivering jungle justice was the Hokage's word. Though, with just as many people seeing him as a threat, a few people saw Naruto as an ally, like the Uchiha, Aburame and Kurama clans, as well as the ninjas that were close to Naruto's parents, besides Kakashi. They assumed that the boy knew of their plan all those years ago when he was a baby, this was where their fear for his treachery stemmed from.

Naruto wasn't oblivious to their looks, but he didn't care; he was technically overqualified to be an academy student. The whiskered child stalked up the stairs mechanically, his face still plastered with his fake smile, he stopped on the third of four floors in the building and he swiped his key card over the only door the staircase led to. The key hole glowed light green and he pushed forward, he was immediately met with the soothing scent of the air freshener he preferred using. It was jade with a hint of rose, wafting in the air not as seductive as it normally should but with a calming aroma that could tame even the wildest of beasts, in theory. He inhaled deeply and allowed his smile to fade off his face, he grumbled and rubbed his sore cheeks as he walked towards the island kitchen; he had smiled more and longer than he had ever done in his eight years of living in just one day. The boy silently went through the action of preparing tea; he opened the cabinet above the sink and removed two tea bags from a tin, placed them into two mugs he had mechanically used his other hand to rinse out and placed the cups beside the stove as he lightly kicked open the cabinet under the stove, revealing gleaming pots and pans, he pursed his lips as he searched through it, gently shifting pots aside and sighing when he found what he was looking for.

A stainless steel kettle.

He pulled it out and filled it with water, bringing it to the stove and snapping the knob to far right once, a bright blue flame burst into life and Naruto placed the kettle onto it. He looked at his left wrist and lifted it up to look at his wrist watch, an ANBU grade clock that was a mandatory accessory black ops, whether ANBU or ROOT, had to wear at all times.

Three

Two

O-

Knock, knock, knock.

The blank faced boy marched to his front door and opened it. On the other side stood his grandfather, Shimura Danzo.

Danzo stoically looked down at Naruto with his lone eye and his face engraved frown. The boy bowed slightly to the older man and muttered, "Welcome, grandfather," he opened the door wider and Danzo nodded in acknowledgement as he steadily walked into the apartment and scrutinised it silently. The child closed the door and motioned his relative towards a chair near the living room table close to the island kitchen. The scarred man slowly trudged to the chair and took a seat, a whistle from the kitchen signified that the water in the kettle was hot so Naruto hurried to take it off the fire and pour the tea into the mugs he set aside.

Naruto placed a mug close to his grandfather and sat down with his own mug across from the silent man. The two stoic males silently cupped their mugs of tea and inhaled deeply at the same time, this brought a small twitch on Danzo's lips. The eight year old peaked over his mug with large eyes, even the one hidden under the blonde fringe covering almost half of his face and silently sipped the green tea in his cup; silence reigned until the council member cleared his throat and gently placed his cup onto the table.

"How was school, child?"

The boys lips screwed in uncertainty, "It was…eventful,"

"How so?" the man inquired from his charge and took a small sip from the cup, savouring the taste before swallowing it with a quiet satisfied sigh; Naruto always knew how he wanted his tea.

"My classmates are a lot weaker than I anticipated, I fear that if I looked at them the wrong way they would crumble," the grandchild mumbled, "they talk too much and too fast, I felt…something strange growing in me when they invited me to play with them,"

"Was this feeling pleasant?"

Naruto nodded once, "I felt…lighter that they wanted me around. Is that good?"

Danzo was not a man of facial expressions so he deemed Naruto with a solid nod, "it was good," Naruto ducked his head slightly as he nodded back and looked into his mug of tea, "I was informed of your altercation with those children today,"

The boy immediately went on the defensive, "they declared that they were not my allies. I had to take care of them before they did something to harm Konoha,"

Danzo shook his head slowly, "Naruto…that is what I would have done,"

"Was I wrong?" Naruto mumbled and furrowed his eyebrows, questioning a few things he had been raised to believe in. The bang hanging over his left eye brushed the rim of his mug but he didn't mind, he liked his hair like that.

The one eyed war veteran straightened up in his chair and said, "child, I don't want you to live your life on my will, I want you to live your life the way you want to. I want you develop your own opinion and use your own discretion. That is why I want you to be around those of your age; to learn things that I cannot teach," he paused in his fairly long monologue, "like emotions. Do you remember what I told you before we left the base?"

Naruto nodded curtly, "that my physical training was complete; it was time for my psychological training. But grandfather, why am I different from Torune and Fu and all my other comrades underground?"

The man remained silent for a few minutes and Naruto patiently waited for him to speak, "because…despite not showing it…I care…for you, child," just saying the word gave him have a terrible burning sensation in his chest, not because he didn't mean it but because he was not used to voicing out the stray emotions that failed to leave him, "I owe your parents my life, I have told you this numerous times but this cannot be expressed enough. You hold the most destructive force in the world in that seal and if not for your Varl bull DNA it would be free since you do not have a proper grasp on your emotions. But…I do not just want you to be an empty shell I can throw away; you are special to me in ways I cannot fully express. I gave you all the tools you need and I did this because I trust your judgment, now I want you to learn to have a firm grasp on your emotions," both in understanding and expression.

Naruto remained stoic throughout the man's speech, though a slow tear unconsciously tracked down his right eye, "thank you, grandfather. I will not fail you,"

"I trust you won't, you are my grandson," Danzo said with a tiny hint of pride as he stood up, bones creaking with effort but he powered through. Naruto hastily stood up as well and bowed to the man; uncertainty swam through Danzo's eye before he slowly reached forward and patted Naruto's head twice, "if you need me you know where to find me, child,"

Naruto shook under his mentors hand and closed his eyes tightly, trying to contain the rebel tears that wanted to pour out of his eyes, "I will visit when I can, grandfather,"

The bandage swaddled man nodded once and swished mechanically to the door. Naruto looked at his hand and wiggled them before he raised them slightly and waved goodbye to his grandfather. He had no idea how the old and weathered war veteran walked up two flights of stairs, but he allowed the man his secret and closed the door. He shakily breathed in and out and stalked to the kitchen to wash the two mugs before he started preparing dinner for himself. He screeched to a stop when he saw a large scroll on the dining table, he vaguely suspected that it was a list of 'projects' his grandfather wanted him to complete while he studied. These 'projects' was just a fancy way of saying 'low ranked missions' in underground, it was the closest to a joke within their ranks. He sealed it into the table to look into later as he slipped into the kitchen with the empty mugs.

The Varl bull DNA Danzo mentioned was a last second decision the old man had made to ensure that Naruto's ROOT training went as smoothly as possible, seeing as a major part of the training was for the trainee to lose all his emotions and his touch with sanity. It was a delicate procedure Danzo entrusted Orochimaru to perform in secret just as the child was brought to his hideout by Fugaku, who was none the wiser. The rogue Sannin took DNA from an ancient, broken horn from an extinct race called Varl, who were later survived by the descendants of the bull she herded. These Varl were said to have walked the earth long before the gods noticed their existence and wiped them out for fear that these all-powerful men would one day rise up against the heavens, and would very much succeed with the kind of bullish strength and brutality they had; before they were unconsciously fed sleeping potions in their vats of beer and killed off in their sleep by the joint effort of Kami and Yami, a single horn didn't burn into ash while the two gods slashed and scorched the earth after the weakened men. This horn dug into the ground and was unearthed by Madara and Hashirama during the fight that formed the valley of end, at the very bottom of the lake between both of the stone carvings of the legendary figures. It was Danzo that first took the horn and had been studying it for years before he lent it to Orochimaru, a close associate of his, to look at for himself. This was where he found out about the extinct clan of Varl, the oldest clan on the planet, not only living through the descendants of the bulls they herded but also directly passed on their DNA through the horn. If not for Orochimaru's insatiable thirst for knowledge he would never had found out about the Varl from the libraries of the Uzumaki clan before that clan was also destroyed.

The Sannin owed Danzo more than a few favours so he begrudgingly performed surgery on Naruto to carefully place the old DNA into Naruto's DNA to give it the level of stability the clan was written to have. Solid on the ground as a bull that couldn't be moved, all because of their saturated and potent earth chakra, capable of holding down any person they fought. The DNA was accepted easily because his Uzumaki heritage made it easy to assimilate DNA as long as it was introduced steadily. After the operation a Yamanaka had mind walked in Naruto's infant mind and witnessed the great tailed beast sunken into the ground by his arms, feet and tails.

Sleeping.

They took it as a success that the earth chakra was able to put the strongest tailed beasts to sleep after only a week of applying it to Naruto. So from that day on Naruto had been forced to bear the weight of expectation of the whole ROOT organisation and his grandfather, learning advanced subjects when he could talk and training like a wild animal when he could walk. Naruto still had to go for regular check-ups with Orochimaru every three months in a ROOT base in Grass country, though it didn't stop him from shooting up the ranks at an aggressive and terrifying speed. It reached a point that during the soul exerting exercises he just…stopped feeling.

He had the emotions locked somewhere in his psyche but he had disregarded them for so long that they had shrivelled up, stomped under his ROOT mindedness. Now his grandfather wanted him to revive those dying emotions. How, he didn't know.

Despite all of the expectations piled on him he still wondered what his parents had done to make Danzo so indebted to them.

Naruto puffed out a breathe; shifting the long bang over his left eye away from his lips, and then he decided to eat out. He didn't feel like cooking and he had enough money to last him a month, if he used it well, until a ROOT operative was sent to him with his monthly allowance. Sure one of the many things he was taught was accounting and proper finance, and yes he was blessed enough to have a grandfather that didn't care much for money enough to shower it on him while he was living outside of the ROOT base, but that didn't mean he would just blow it all away. He at least wanted to save some money from his monthly allowance, just in case.

The deceptively mature eight year old ROOT ninja entered his bedroom and examined himself in the mirror, adjusting his silver beanie and straightening his black shirt before he smiled a little and puffed out his chest. He checked his wrist for the time and his eyes fractionally widened when he saw the green light blink 08:50PM. He exited his apartment, being extra careful to lock the door behind him, the high level seals inspected by his comrades in ROOT clicked in place, and he marched down the stairs into town, taking his time to look for a good place to eat. He was grateful that he didn't have ROOT ninjas following after him, like when he was five and was still getting the hang of going on missions, but it did mildly get him annoyed when he saw a woman donning a Cat mask leap from building to building above him. He pulled up his gloves and stuffed his hands into his pockets, slouching his shoulder as the cold chill licked his cheek, turning the pale skin red. He idly blew at his overhanging bang as it tickled his nose and peered through the windows of a brightly lit restaurant, he pushed away when he saw that it was candlelit and snobby, two combinations that gave him indigestion.

It was the middle of the year and the streets were fairly populated, he looked at them in wonder as most of them walked in pairs, a few even in groups of ten, bellowing boisterously as they stumbled past him. Naruto wasn't aware that he had been walking for more than a few minutes, deeper down restaurant road into the darker corners as he observed people trooping down the streets in numbers. His eyebrows furrowed in confusion, and not for the first time that day, and he stared impolitely at two people, a male and female, kissing vigorously and hiding in the shadows of a small restaurant. He studied them for a few more seconds until the man pushed his face away and flipped over, hiding the woman and continuing their make-out session. The boy grunted sourly with a small frown before he shrugged and turned to keep walking but stopped just before he could start when he found a girl with deep brown eyes and brown hair staring at him with a knowing grin on her face.

"People like to have privacy when they're doing that," she crossed her arms, "what's a kid like you doing out this late?"

"If they intended to have privacy then I'm sure there are enough places to find it," Naruto replied almost immediately, "and I'm looking for where I can eat dinner,"

The girl jumped over the obvious question of why he couldn't just eat with his family and dramatically motioned to the restaurant to her side, clearly named 'Ichiraku Ramen' and said, "Then you've come to the right place; we serve the best ramen in all of Konoha!"

He observed her and deduced that she was in her mid-teens, and then promptly saying, "How are you so sure this is the best ramen in all of Konoha?"

He asked this so mechanically, for once forgetting to smile, that all childhood wonder after her declaration left her body in a glorious display of disappointment. She blubbered as she tried to come up with a quick answer, "well…Uhm… we only use the best ingredients on all the land,"

He perched his chin between his index and middle finger in a thinking pose, eying the ramen stand critically, "if you can afford to do that then why does this place look like…this?"

Her cheeks reddened in embarrassment, "look like what?!"

He blinked at her outraged yell, "like a tavern,"

The brown haired girl stormed to Naruto and grabbed him by bunching up the front of his shirt and setting her other hand to punch him, while the boy cocked his head to the side at the fact she had taken offense at his honesty, "say that again, brat," maybe it was the low lighting but she didn't seem to see his sharp horns, "I dare you,"

Naruto blinked again and said, "Ok. Your restaurant looks like a tavern," he wanted to see how she would react to his honesty after her dare. Her face took on a whole new hue of red and her fist surged forward to his face, expecting him to at least flinch away in fear but only getting a mildly interested eye looking up at her and an idle breathe pushing away his bang. She stopped her fist before it could hit him and dragged him into the restaurant, "as I thought, with your arm strength and the lack of bruises on your fists you have never assaulted anyone, hence your threat was just a show of force," he said and a light went off over his head. He allowed her to drag him into Ichikraku by the front of his now scrunched black shirt as he removed a small notepad from his sleeves and a pencil, jotting down his observations and proudly slipping them back up his sleeves, satisfied that he now understood what he referred to as 'a show of force'. He grunted when he was rudely shoved onto a bar stool, "you people are truly fascinating,"

"Shut up," the girl barked with her teeth bared. She furiously tied on her apron muttering childish curse words her father wouldn't have been proud of. Then she loudly cracked her neck and her fingers before commanding, "Order something,"

"I thought you said I should shut up," Naruto fired back.

"Shut up!" she squealed in a high pitch voice and rubbed her forehead, soothing the creases there that this infuriatingly adorable boy was causing. She took in a few deep breathes before relaxing her small rigid shoulders and saying with a gentle smile, "we started off on the wrong foot, I'm sorry…" Naruto hummed with his lips pursed, then nodding. She grit her teeth to contain her rage, "you're supposed to apologise back,"

The horned boy 'oh'd' in realization and jotted down the small tid bit of info into his small jotter, "noted," he coughed and slipped them back into his sleeves, "I apologise,"

She glared at him for a few seconds before smiling happily, "apology accepted. Now, what do you want to eat?"

In a rare show of intuition that he wasn't taught in ROOT the horned boy blankly replied, "You mean besides ramen?"

She gave him the stink eye, the worst one she had ever given a living creature, "don't test me brat,"

"And aren't you too young to be calling me brat?" he asked and waited for her response so as to write it down. She silently fumed until it all miraculously went away.

She motioned above her at the assorted list of ramen they served at the ramen stand, "pick one and I'll show you that it's the best in the country,"

"I thought you said it was 'the best in Konoha'" she glared at him, enough for him to shift a little in his seat, a tiny bit uncomfortable at the way her hands slowly slinked to a knife; if she attacked then he would be forced to attack back and he didn't want to hear the inevitable talking to from his grandfather when they found her dead body, "I'll have the…chicken ramen with scrambled eggs and…water, please,"

"Is that all?" she asked with a raised eyebrow as she began preparing his order, dramatically flipping the eggs in an attempt to mystify him but sweat dropped when she found him animatedly observing another couple snogging outside the stand, "you really like peaking huh,"

"It isn't peaking if they are making no attempt to hide," he shot back quickly without looking away, "I'm confused though…what are they doing and why are they doing it?"

Her cheeks flushed, "it's called kissing and it's a way of expressing your attraction to someone,"

"Attraction? Like with magnets?"

"Something like that, yeah," she neatly poured the ramen into a bowl and set the scrambled eggs onto it to the side. She pushed it to him and slide new chopsticks across the table into his awaiting hands.

"But how can living organisms like us human beings behave like magnets?"

She rubbed the sides of her head at the large words he was using, "they just…like each other really, really much and they're…expressing it the best way they can at the moment," she hurriedly closed the curtain flap and snapped, "enough dirty adult talk. Eat your food,"

He pouted at her but she stubbornly crossed her arms and strutted back around the counter, watching him with bright, sparkling eyes as he broke his chopsticks, gently blew on the noodle, pushed his bang aside a little, not enough to expose his left eye, and sucked the noodles into his mouth till his cheeks bulged, cutting it not too long after. He savoured the taste and swallowed, then smacking his lips and sipping the cup of water she presented to him.

She bit her bottom lip and hopped excitedly on her feet, "so? How was it?"

Naruto looked up at her with his lone exposed eye and opened his mouth to tell her that it didn't taste as impressive as she had been hyping it, but held his tongue when he saw a flurry of emotions and feelings through her eyes and posture, and caught one that he knew all too well: fear of disappointment. It was probably her first time making ramen without assistance; his words could either make or break her self-confidence as a chef. His eyes briefly lowered at the various memories associated with the feeling, then replaced the sombre frown with smile so wide and bright that he closed his eyes and sent her a thumbs up.

"It's the best I've ever tasted," he could hear her sigh in relief and when he opened his eyes he noticed her abruptly stop her celebratory dance, "can you please prepare more?"

"How much more?"

His face turned comically grim as he replied, "I'll tell you when to stop," and he poured the whole bowl of steaming hot ramen into his mouth, while she rushed around the kitchen and cooked as fast as possible to try and keep up with the eight year old child's monster appetite.

The question of who he was and who she was forgotten that night as the horned child devoured eat bowl of delectable ramen without mercy.

The next day, Naruto groaned awake, wondering where he was and after a few slow minutes of wondering he recognized the picture of Danzo and him, leading him to deduce that he had blacked out from eating ramen and his drunken body was lugged back to his apartment. He moaned tiredly and sat up, "no more binge eating ramen," he huffed and swung his feet off the bed, planted them firmly into the ground. He licked his dry lips and idly regarded the bedside clock blinking 06:20AM, funny how he still woke up early after his ramen induced coma. Naruto scratched his cheek and rubbed his tired eyes, though before he got to his feet he noticed a note on his forehead. He swiftly swiped off the note and read it:

I took you back to your place after you passed out; don't worry, you kept mumbling for me to bring you to this apartment. Anyway, I didn't know any normal human being can eat thirty eight bowls of ramen BACK TO BACK. Come back whenever you can, Naruto-kun! And hey, don't worry about the bill, I took it from your wallet.

Ayame.

Naruto's eyes widened in horror and he frantically patted his pockets down until he found his wallet, his heart dropped when he found no money inside.

Authors note

Let it be said that Naruto HAS emotions but he doesn't know how to differentiate them or express them. He was trained much more vigorously than other ROOT, that's why he was even allowed out of Danzo's close watch (he passed every test he put Naruto to), but he still has emotions for reasons best explained in the next chapter.

Notice how the Varl were taken out by beer and Naruto blacked out from eating ramen? Well…yes, there's an obvious connection there.

Ok, so first chapter done and I'm kinda proud of it. Just a little warning before I publish the next chapter when I finish it, if your against ROOT or even the remote thought of Danzo being even the slightest bit kind, even though there will be no heart filled hugs or running in the parks (just thinking of Danzo doing that is giving me an…unpleasant burning sensation in my chest), then it's best if you skip this story and go for something else I've done. I'm not averse to writing dark things and let's face it, no matter the angle you look at it; ROOT isn't a legal or kind organisation. How they do things won't appeal to people.

It's just a warning.

I assure you that a few things will make sense in the next few chapters like whether or not it was really a deity that had killed the Varl, whether or not Naruto would be paired with anyone, etc. Stuff like that.

Any who, what did you think of this chapter?

Leave a review on your thoughts, would you so kindly, stay safe wherever you are in the world and I will see you in the next chapter.

Foy.