A/N: My first fanfic. If anyone has any suggestions or if you find any grammatical errors please inform me via PM or review. The pairing will be NarutoHinata; I might add another girl depending on the plot and not reviews. NaruSaku is very improbable, at least till the Shippuden Arc.

The young Uzumaki was bouncing on his feet, an eager look on his face. The day had finally come when he was going to enter the Academy. Finally he was going to have friends, Jiji had assured him he would and Hokage Jiji was never wrong. Had he known the reactions kids his age would have when they saw him he would have been better prepared.

As soon as Naruto entered class the look he got from the students broke his heart. Most of them looked at him with indifference and some outright glared at him. Not a single one smiled at him. Naruto hid his pain and put on his best smile as he went and sat at the front of the class near a pink haired girl.

"Hi I'm Uzumaki Naruto" he introduced himself politely, putting on his best manners.

His smile fell a bit as the girl did not even look at him instead she shifted a bit trying to put in more space between them. Naruto frowned at her reaction, he was sure he was not smelling so why did the girl move away. The only conclusion his analytical mind could come to was that the girl did not hear him. So he tried again but received the same reaction. Just as he was going to try a third time the girl looked at him, an annoyed expression marring her pretty face "Will you keep quiet and sit somewhere else, my mother has told me all about you, you monster" She said with disdain. A child's mind can sometimes be a double edged sword since it's so easy to corrupt. Children at times can also seem extremely cruel as often they do not think before saying. But that simple sentence muttered by the girl pierced Naruto's heart like no Kunai could. It shattered his hope of finding a friend. His simple mind did not notice that there were several more children in the class who he could be friends with. He abruptly ran out of class tears streaming down his face as those fateful words kept repeating itself. He ran out of the academy and didn't stop until he fell out of exhaustion.

That night Naruto cried himself to sleep. His search for a cure to loneliness still eluded him. The next day did not go much better as the teacher punished him for not attending the day before and hence he had to stand outside the class the whole day. The whole week went on in more or less the same fashion as the teachers kept finding excuses to remove him from class or completely ignored him while teaching. He had thought about complaining to the Hokage about it but for some reason which he could not fathom he decided against it. At that time Naruto did not realize but not reporting to the Hokage seemed to be a boon for him. After a week of standing outside the class and trying to listen in on what was happening in the class he gave up. So the next time he was sent out he decided to explore a bit. He went to the academy playground and found two older boys chatting excitedly. He quietly crept behind the bush which was adjacent to the slide where the two boys were and tried to listen.

"I finally learned the Henge" exclaimed one of them.

"Oh really" The other boy said clearly not believing his friend.

The first boy huffed in annoyance "I'll show it to you then." He did a hand seal and said "Henge no Jutsu". Smoke surrounded the boy and when it cleared in place of the boy was a chuunin instructor.

Naruto looked at the boy fascinated; he had never heard or seen a Jutsu like that. The boys suddenly looked in his direction most probably sensing him. Naruto quickly suppressed his chakra and held his breath. The boys looked at the bush, behind which he was crouching, for a few more seconds then went back to whatever they were doing.

Naruto quickly backtracked after he saw that the boys were not looking in his direction anymore. He went back to class with one thought in his mind, he was going to learn the Jutsu the boy displayed, no matter how hard he had to try he was going to learn it.

A soul can never be alone there should always be somebody with it at all times, be it living or non living. A lone soul does not exist; every soul has something or someone it can identify itself with. Uzumaki Naruto no matter what his resolve required something to keep him going, something or someone who he could be with. After eight years of loneliness Naruto gave up looking for a living being he could call a friend and thus began to look for anything that would drive away this terrifying emptiness. And that is when Naruto found his will to excel at everything he did. Uzumaki Naruto became a perfectionist.

That night Naruto kept practicing the Jutsu. He had surprisingly learned the Jutsu the first time he tried but it was not perfect. He wanted to do it flawlessly and with the least amount of smoke. He practiced till late at night and only went to sleep when he fell on the floor tired. The next morning Naruto woke up he began practicing the Jutsu again. He must have done the Jutsu at least a thousand times by now. He had transformed into anyone he remembered seeing. Though it was much easier when he tried to transform into someone he knew well.

A few weeks later

Uzumaki Naruto scoffed at the ninja standing guard at the Library as he walked past him. He was easily able to borrow a scroll from the ninja section. A simple henge and some chakra suppression had done the trick. He knew the Anbu following him would know about his deed but he was sure the Hokage would pacify them, after all the old man trusted him blindly.

Naruto quickly made his way over to his downtrodden apartment; after all he had some reading to do. Uzumaki Naruto had learned quickly that the teachers at the Academy would not do anything to help him. They like most of the villagers chose to ignore him with cold apathy but that did not worry him a least bit, he had realized long back that if he wanted to learn something he would have to do it on his own. He had learned the Henge no Jutsu on his own just by spying on some of the children at the academy and that had given him confidence. He knew he could learn anything the academy had to teach him if he wanted to learn it. After all his will to excel had yet to fail him.

A/N Please read and review. Please leave a constructive review and not ones like 'Update Please'. I require a beta so if anyone is interested please PM or mail me.