Naruto Uzumaki struggles, apparently uselessly, against the ropes tying him up to the sturdy training post. There are three posts like this one in each of the training grounds surrounding Konohagakure; they have to be strong enough to withstand the hits of accomplished shinobi.

Next to him, Sakura Haruno has her eyes cast down, possibly in shame. Naruto likes the girl but he hopes she is ashamed. She graduated two days ago as the kunoichi of the year and she did absolutely nothing during their team test.

The blond boy shifts his gaze to his left and sees Sasuke Uchiha brooding as is his habit.

"You fail."

The voice, bored, brings Naruto's attention back to the man facing them. He is tall, lanky, with long spiky white hair that decided once to refuse the pull of gravity. His face is almost entirely covered by silk and steel. Also, he is bored; that seems to be his defining trait, as far as Naruto is concerned.

Naruto eyes the man for a second before he looks down and allows the words to glide past him. He has heard them so much, these two words, told to him specifically, that they have lost their meaning. Naruto was actually waiting for them; the man has humiliated him during the test, has tied him even though he actually tried, so hearing those words is just the cherry on top.

Normally, Naruto would have shouted a boastful challenge to the man, a promise that he would do better next time. It is a useful strategy to divert his attention from the rage he can feel burning his insides. Unfortunately, the ropes are a little too tight still for him to do that so he has to swallow his anger the old fashioned way: in silence.

Why does he have to endure that?

The boy squirms a little bit more against his binds; the jonin knows his shibarijutsu and the more Naruto moves, the more it hurts. However, he has been tied up countless time after his pranks so he knows he will get out. Eventually. He learned how to.

"What is good is that you don't need to bother going back to the Academy."

Naruto lifts his gaze back at the lanky jonin and sees how the man's one visible eye crinkles in a smile. The boy knows it is absolutely fake. He is pretty good with fake smiles. He knows the man is just toying with them - with him.

"You should all quit being ninja."

The verdict falls like a hammer but Naruto shrugs it off just as easily as the announcement of his failure. He has also been told countless times that he is unfit, that he will never amount to anything yet the weight of his forehead protector on his forehead is proof enough that he can. As long as he does not give up, he will be able to do anything. The thought allows him to swallow everything again, to smother the urge to harm as much as he is harmed.

Why does he even bother to endure it?

To his right, Sakura gasps in disbelief. She looks like someone who has never been hit and has received their first slap on the cheek.

"What?!" Her voice comes out loudly; Naruto hears the tremors of confusion and incomprehension.

"I know we didn't get the bells but why do we have to quit?" The girl exclaims questioningly.

"Because you're a bunch of punks unfit to be ninja."

Naruto sees someone - Sasuke, he realizes - lunge in a flurry of black and blue at the jonin. He can't help but be surprised by the way the man manhandles his class shinobi of the year. The Uchiha boy is eating dirt, literally; his head his pressed into the ground by one of the jonin's feet and his arms are captured in a lock.

"As I said. A punk," states the lanky man, unbothered. Naruto wonders if the jonin can be bothered by something in the first place.

"Ah! Don't step on Sasuke-kun!" Sakura wails, horrified.

The lanky man pins her with a one-eyed glare that silences her, an aura of dread blossoming around him like the corolla of a poisonous flower. "Do you have any idea what it means to be ninjas? Did you stop to think why you were divided into teams in the first place?" He asks in a hard tone.

Naruto feels his eyes go wide in realization and his mouth arches into a small "o" shape as he comes to understand the entire charade. The team he was assigned to, the teammates he is asked to accept, the impossible test this lanky, bored man who is somehow supposed to be their team captain presented them with. They were lacking one element to make these separate parts a cohesive whole.

The answer was dangling in front of his nose since the beginning but he was too obsessed with success to see it. Too certain the other two wouldn't help him, too. He can readily admit to that.

"Huh? What does that mean?" Sakura asks, confused.

Naruto cannot help it. He snorts. The clearing they are in still in silence as all eyes are drawn to his tied up form. He snorts again before a chuckle escapes him. It morphs into a hysterical laughing fit that he cannot suppress, try as he might. He reckons he knows the answer and if he is right, then this team was going to fail since the beginning, no matter the test.

He has a few ideas as to what it means.

He is actually glad for his failure this time: he could never get along with Sasuke and it is quite clear that the lanky man will do him no good. He is a bit sad he'll be separated from Sakura though, not that he really got along with her either. It is probably the first time since forever that he laughs one of his failures out in a genuine way. It helps him drown the renewed fury he feels at the thought of the set-up.

Naruto takes a deep breath in order to appease his laughter. He still trembles and the occasional chuckles escape him but eventually, he has it under control. When he blinks his eyes free from the tears of mirth and amusement, he sees the three persons he is with look at him as if he has gone insane.

Correction: the lanky ninja is just a little less bored than he was seconds ago. There is mild interest shining in his lone eye now.

The ropes around Naruto fall in a heap, finally. The boy shakes his head as he massages his wrists to allow for the blood to flow. He grimaces a bit at the pins and needles sensation that numb his hands. The knot was excellent but he has a few tricks up his sleeves.

"What is so funny, Naruto?" The lanky man asks.

The boy returns the ninja his best smile, a wide crescent of pearly white teeth, so perfectly practised it has become second nature.

"Nothing," Naruto says with a chuckle. "I failed and I was laughing 'cause it's funny. And good." He explains like it is the most obvious thing in the world.

It actually is. He won't be stuck in a team where he cannot stand the others and the others disdain him. That is the definition of good as far as he is concerned. Humming a tune, he walks away.

"You'll stop here, Naruto. I did not dismiss you yet."

The boy turns toward the ninja, one eyebrow arched upward. "You kinda did though. Said we should quit, yadda yadda yadda. Well, I'm done here, I need to register myself in the Academy for the coming year."

"I thought you wanted to become Hokage."

Naruto shrugs. For his entire life, he has never wanted so much never to become Hokage as this instant. "One year more, one year less. Same difference." He has passed once, he is confident he can do it again.

"It's a shame. I was feeling generous and thinking of giving you three another try."

The boy feels the white-hot anger he was keeping at bay finally submerge him. Pain surges in his head as the feeling invades him. One humiliation was not enough, this despicable man wants to do it again? Why would Naruto ever want another try at a rigged test? Does this man think he is stupid? Desperate maybe? The pressure in his head rises and Naruto blinks some tears away.

Why does he bother?

Anger has never made his life easier so he takes a deep breath to calm himself. The hurt recedes, slowly but surely. Finally, the boy eyes the man. There is not much to read, not much to decipher. Naruto does not need it anyway. He knows already what is what.

Naruto smiles wide. "It's okay Hatake-san," he says cheerily.

Before the man can say anything, the boy continues.

"See? I'm gone, you can take Sasuke as your apprentice. It's all good, I didn't really want you as a sensei anyhow. I'd think about my future if I were you Sakura." Curtly but still smiling, he nods to his ex-classmates and whirls around to walk outside of the training ground.

"I have the authority to blacklist you, Naruto Uzumaki. If you ever want to be a ninja, turn around immediately."

Naruto freezes and his stomach twists in a knot. The man is apparently dead-set on humiliating him a second time. The boy grinds his teeth together for a second and swallows another spike of anger. With a deep breath, he forces his shoulders to relax. What is another humiliation considering all those he has already lived through? He is not going to allow this asshole to trample his ambition.

What even is his ambition?

Slowly, Naruto faces the jonin once more. He has a smile on his face, as always. "Very well, Hatake-san."

Suddenly, the jonin is lazy again. As if he did not just threaten Naruto, he gestures for the boy to take a seat against the post he was tied to.

"Sakura, Sasuke, you're allowed to eat. If you feed Naruto, you'll immediately fail. Naruto, you're not allowed to talk, if you do, you fail. I'll test you again in half an hour." Having said that, the jonin disappears.

The blond boy sits down with a sigh while his teammates open a box each with food inside. The aroma wafts to Naruto's nose and his nostrils flare reflexively. The boy feels his stomach rumble.

It does not matter. He dearly hopes that they will fail so the less food in his stomach, the higher the chance of it happening. He wonders if he should just talk but then again, Hatake could interpret that as voluntary sabotage on his part - and he would be entirely correct. Naruto does not know if the jonin has the authority he says he has but there is no point in risking it.

A frown mars his features as he thinks about it.

Can Konoha afford to not make him a ninja? He is the cage to a terrible power and Konoha is before all else a military village.

Does he even want a headband with a leaf on it?

The answer is right there, a hairbreadth away from his grasp.

Before Naruto can decide whether he wants to call out what is definitely a bluff, Sasuke presents his bento to the blond.

"Eat."

Naruto slowly swivels his head to his left to see Sasuke looking at him with hard eyes. Naruto knows what determination looks like so he recognizes it in the onyx of the Uchiha's orbs.

"Sasuke-kun, you heard Kakashi-sensei!" Sakura cries out worriedly. "If you share with Naruto you'll fail!"

"I don't care," snaps the Uchiha, silencing the girl before he focuses his glare at Naruto. "I'm not a coddled kid," Sasuke snarls, this time talking to the blond only. "I don't have it better."

The blond instantly understands it is not about the food. It is about his comment about Kakashi taking him as an apprentice. Naruto is mighty surprised the Uchiha would risk such an opportunity; it really is a case of misplaced pride, in the blond boy's opinion. Or maybe it is a gross misunderstanding.

"Plus, if he doesn't eat, he'll be useless."

Or maybe Sasuke got the meaning behind the test and decided to act on it, which surprises Naruto even more. The Uchiha is always alone. It is not that people avoid him: he actively avoids people, he pushes them away even. Naruto would have never pegged him for someone who would accept working with a team.

Before he can talk to refuse - before he can do anything, in fact, a wave of dread crashes upon them and causes them to freeze in fear.

"You!" Kakashi howls. "You pass."

"Uh?"

Naruto doesn't begrudge Sakura her exclamation of surprise. He is just as confused as to why this man would pretend to be his sensei.

Ah, of course, "pretend" is the keyword here, Naruto supposes. The boy has to repress the flow of his anger again. His head throbs from the pain but a deep breath settles it.

"The answer to this test was teamwork," Hatake is saying. "It is the most fundamental aspect of our work for us ninja of Konoha. If you break the rules, you'll be trash but if you abandon your teammate, you'll be worse than that."

Naruto smiles. He would like to believe the jonin sincerely believes the things he is saying but the boy knows it won't hold as far as he is concerned. That is how Konoha works for him. The Will of Fire, helping your kind, being teammates: that's not for him.

"The two bells were to force you to look underneath the underneath. Shinobi conceal their intention, the truth is never bare for you to see. But most of all, shinobi endure: you have to be ready to sacrifice is you want to keep walking this path of life."

Naruto wants to laugh. He is sure the jonin has lost people to the shinobi life. He probably thinks he is wise, talking about sacrifice, enduring and concealing. The blond throws a look at Sasuke. The Uchiha is as unimpressed as he is.

"Congratulation, you're now team seven."

Naruto fights a snarl. He wants to claw out the intestines of the man in front of him. He wants to rip his head from his torso. He wants to murder him because there is nothing in Hatake's voice that could hint at dishonesty and he hates that. Naruto won't relax, he won't let the man hurt him.

He smiles.

"See you tomorrow, here, eight in the morning."

The jonin disappears in a body flicker.

On top of the Yondaime Hokage's carved head, Kakashi Hatake ponders on his new team. Normally, he ponders in front of the monument to the Fallen but this time, the situation is too dire for him to seek the counsel of dead people.

His guts scream at him that this is a problem that must be tackled now. He cannot resort to his usual method of dealing with a contrariety, which could be summarized by doing nothing and hoping it goes away.

Sasuke is a problem. Sakura is a problem. Naruto is a problem. The worst of the three, actually and it does have to do with the beast of immense power caged deep within the boy's chakra coils but only partly. It has entirely to do with the village.

The child is angry, understandably so and Kakashi frown under his mask and headband. The problem is that Naruto cannot afford to be like this. The village will ultimately not allow it. The Hokage will not allow it. The old Sarutobi is weak and has shown it; instead of bringing his village to heel, he allowed Naruto to be systematically ostracized.

It had the expected results. The boy masks it relatively well but Kakashi has been a shinobi longer than Naruto has been alive. He has learned to look for things concealed underneath outward appearances.

Kakashi knows he could full well continue his routine. He could go to the stone every morning, mull on his regrets for three hours and keep his distance with his genin. He knows what the result will be and he certainly doesn't want that.

What he doesn't know is what he is more afraid of: to become close to his charges and lose them because of his incompetence or to refuse them and lose them because of his inaction.

The conundrum is one he cannot solve yet he must solve it now. Team seven must become a real team. Naruto must be shown that he isn't facing life completely alone, that he doesn't have to do everything on his own. Sasuke must basically understand the same thing. It's even more straight forwards for Sakura: if she doesn't become a kunoichi, she'll die or cause others to die.

Seeing as she is the only one who has parents - who are shinobi themselves - Kakashi is mildly surprised the girl was allowed to become what she is today. Only mildly though because he knows it is part of the village's way to have kids stay kids for as long as possible.

This mindset is precisely what kills them in the field. Either you become a shinobi or you don't but there is no in-between in this world.

He breathes deeply, inhaling the evening air. Damned if he does, damned if he doesn't. He looks down on the carved head.

What would his sensei do? What would his teammates do?

The two questions barely reach the end of their respective trails in his mind that the answer to both is already known to him.

Below courage, there is nothing. His mentor had been fond of that saying; in fact, as far as Kakashi knew, he had coined it himself. The Hatake closes his eye in intense concentration. If he does not face his fears now, they will come to bear later. Those who abandon their teammate are worse than trash. Team seven was a team and he was their captain, whether he wanted it or not. The three kids were his responsibility.

Kakashi opens his eye and squeezes his right hand in a painfully tight fist. It has been decided.

He'll just have to do his damned best to die before the kids.

Naruto eyes his headband. It lies on the table, which stands at the centre of his dainty little flat.

It belongs to Iruka Umino, his teacher in the Academy. It still belongs to the man, as Naruto doesn't feel it is his for now.

He has earned it, that is not the question. He has endured, concealed and sacrificed more than many and he has even beaten a chunin as a show of strength. He has a right to wear this headband.

Naruto just isn't sure anymore if he wants to.

It's not sudden. It's the logical end of a route others started in his place years ago. The thought rebound in his head not for the first time, like an endless echo. It is his one last chance to go after something else, it is the proverbial fork in the road.

Does he believe Hatake's little lie about teammates? Does he set himself up for another betrayal, another disappointment? Because why should it be different? The jonin was bored, uninterested, humiliated him and behaved overall like an asshole and Naruto should believe that the man is going to take care of him? To care at all?

A little voice in the back of his mind begs him to accept, to believe one more time, after all, he is already so low, the only way is up. He cannot give up now, precisely because he would be giving up. He has always gone forwards, worked hard, refusing to listen to those who would see him down and miserable. He has defied their expectation - no, their want, their deep-seated need - for him to fail. To not accept the headband would be to prove them right, to allow them another victory over him.

"They have hated me for as long as I've been alive, they have lied to me, forced me into loneliness. I do not have to prove anything to them." The blond boy whispers.

This voice is louder. It belongs to him, it has always been there but as years passed and nothing got better despite his efforts, it has become increasingly powerful. It is the voice that comes out now when he talks to himself.

"I know nothing will change. It was good to try but at some point, it's not trying, it's banging my head against a brick wall."

Iruka changed. He said it all of three nights ago as Naruto was told, by a traitor no less, the reason he is hated. He said Naruto was his favourite student.

"He did! He is also the teacher who failed me three times. The teacher who never helped me afterwards. The teacher who screamed at me when I slept during class but never at Shikamaru. The teacher who allowed Sakura to hit me and never enforced any discipline on her but remember the time I try that against Kiba? Who did he punish then? Do you really think he changed? Or did he manipulate me?"

Everyone makes mistakes, it's not like Naruto didn't. His campaign for attention, his pranks, all of it was lost on hostile villagers. He should have tried harder to study. He had at first but the teachers at the Academy never cared if he did well. No, correction, they did care. They looked at him as if he were dangerous, as if he shouldn't do good. He figured he had to get them to look at him differently first. He figured he had to get all of them to look at him differently.

A clown couldn't be harmful and if it was an opportunity to occupy himself while dishing out some sweet revenge on some fat, mean shopkeepers, then all the best.

"Well, that worked out well. Also, Iruka made a mistake? For years? The same one? How long will I allow them to hurt me, to repeat the same mistake again and again? Get real, I didn't convince him by doing good, I didn't convince him by doing bad. He hates me. They hate me. The only way up is out."

What about the Hokage? He-

"Lied to us, for years. You know what? I bet he knows who my parents are but he refuses to tell me. He is the Hokage but did he help me?" Naruto scoffed. "He bought me ramen sometimes, big deal. He hates me just like the others, he is just better at hiding it."

There is no answer to that. The little voice does not, cannot even frame the facts in a way that excuses the old man in the tower. Naruto has a being of power sealed in him. It's dangerous. Not telling him about it makes it even more dangerous. It is the reason he is hated. Did the Hokage tell him about it? No. Naruto shakes his head, a rueful look on his features as he eyes his headband once more.

"Face it, I ain't going nowhere if I stay here."

Does he even want a headband with a leaf on it? The answer is clear, the answer is obvious and the answer is finally within his grasp.

No.

Gripping a kunai firmly in hand, the boy spear through the thin plate of metal with a sheer strength a normal twelve years old should not possess. Naruto, however, is a ninja. Chakra permanently flows in a web of mystical coils all around his body, gifting him with superhuman powers. A grim look on his face, he stares at the headband nailed on his table for a long time.

There is a pit open in his stomach. In these depths, relief fights it out with fear.

He is free.

Where will he go now?

AN: Before you decide if you want to follow any further, just so that we are on the same page: Naruto will not foster a burning hatred for Konoha and he will not raze it to the ground in "revenge". He isn't Sasuke. He is, however, fucking off to places where the grass is (hopefully) greener. I also get that he is OoC here but one, it is needed if I want him out of Konoha and two, it wouldn't be fanfiction otherwise and you would just read the manga. My aim is for him to stay the guy who talks to and seeks to befriend people before he has to kill.

Best,