Yes! My first Naruto story is being made, and its a crossover too. It take a long while to write but its a joy to write.

Legend: "Talking"

'Thinking'

The Maelstrom and the Chestnut

Prologue

"Naruto, what am I going to do with you?"

Upon his chair sat the 'Professor', Sandaime Hokage Hiruzen Sarutobi, a man of wisdom and good leadership that's shown with his whitening balding hair and weathered skin. The red and white robes on him individualize him as the leader of the hidden ninja village of the leaves, Konoha. The authority he held was apparent in his firm wizened eyes and slight frown but in presence was that of a kind grandfather to those he cherished of his village. One of those precious ones sat in front of his desk; head down like he was caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

"This is the fifth time this week that you have been brought to my office for a prank of yours and, don't you dare comment, it's starting to get old."

A snort escaped from the little prankster but obeyed on not commenting. The boy was more than six years old with tanned skin, a head of sunshine yellow hair and mischievous wide blue eyes. His clothes were dulled colors of a blue t-shirt with an orange swirl in the middle and beige shorts, and on his feet were worn and slightly too big sandals. A sheepish smile came on the boys face, whisker marks graces his cheeks to make him look like a smiling cat. His embarrassed laugh filled the office.

"Haha. Sorry Jiji, I don't mean to waste your time," said Naruto, ignoring the stern look from his grandfather-figure for his informal title, but Sarutobi didn't correcting him, he liked being called something other than Hokage. Then when Naruto made a semi serious face Sarutobi had to retrain himself from laughing aloud. "But that guy deserved it!"

"By having his hair dyed green?"

"I'll wash off…sometime."

"And having him walk around the village, on market day, without realizing he had a hole in his pants-"

"With his butt hanging out for everyone to see! HAHAHA!"

"NARUTO UZUMAKI!"

Snapping his mouth shut, Naruto repositioned himself back on his chair. Well, the guy did deserve it for not being fair on selling food to him and others, that vender sold apples full of worms, hidden rotten oranges and tripling the prices. He was doing the village a favor for humiliating the vender to close his stall. Naruto heard the 'old man' sigh and looked to see him rub the bridge of his nose before looking back at the boy with a stern face again.

"These pranks of yours are getting out of hand. You are just starting to go into the academy to learn to be a shinobi so you should be thinking about more on learning to be one. You want to become Hokage, right?"

"Yeah!"

"Then please at least, think of learning to be one then on all these pranks."

Naruto pouted, he enjoyed pranks, when he wasn't caught. "The white mask people thought it was funny," he murmured.

The Sandaime looked at him flatly, "Only after you were caught and your victim was out of earshot." Though he had to admit, the incident was hilarious and he inwardly praised the boy for bringing smiles to his face and to those around him, the ANBU for one. He cleared his throat and held up a list in his hands. "Anyway, these will be your fitting punishments." He ignored the complaining groan and continued. "First you are to clean the lounge of the tower, restrooms included." The boy cringed. "Then help the secretary organize the files, then help in the kitchens, and-"

"Uh, Hokage-sama?" the boy cut him off, but it wasn't the interruption that stopped Sarutobi but how Naruto addressed him. The boy always called him 'old man' or 'grandpa' as his own way of respect to him but when the blonde address' him as 'Lord Hokage' like the rest of the village, it meant that Naruto was serious about something. He looked up from his paper to see Naruto with his head down, a faint blush on his cheeks, and his hands were across his abdomen with two right fingers smoothing an area on his left hand. The sandaime placed the paper on his desk and leaned toward the boy.

"Yes, Naruto?"

Blue eyes looked at him nervously, "Um, I don't think I can help with the 'ore', 'oro', 'orga'-"

"Or-gan-ize-ing," Sarutobi helped.

"Yeah that whatever it means. I can't help there."

"Why?" A gray eyebrow rose at him.

"Well it has lots and lots of words and I…" the blonde mumbled the rest.

"Pardon?"

Naruto took a deep breath and answered clearly but shamefully, "I can't read sir."

For a moment he looked at the boy silently. 'Can't read, he's six, he should at least have learned spelling and make small sentences, but…wait…did he call me sir? He's not joking.' The face of a concerned old man faced Naruto.

"Surly you must have been taught with the other class."

Naruto worried his bottom lip with his teeth, "The teacher always forces me away from them and has me do classroom chores and every time I ask a question the teacher ignores me, or puts me on timeout." He looks down as specks of tears threaten to leave his eyes. 'Why is it always me?'

He had to strain his ears to hear the sad mumble, but he heard it. Sarutobi sighed, that one question, he knew went through the boys head ever since he was born. The third Hokage knew way, six years ago a great demon, Kyuubi the 9 tailed fox attacked the village causing chaos, destruction, and death in its wake. The creature over powered the shinobi and with every swing of its tails lives were lost. Yet his successor the Yondaime Hokage had a solution but at a price; at the cost of his soul he sealed the soul and chakra of the fox into an infant. In his final moments he wished for the child to be seen as a hero for containing the fox, but it was not to be. Grief, fear, and anger drove to hate from the villagers and shinobi toward the baby. From the moment he could crawl the child knew nothing but the hate from the village for a crime he never committed and treated as if he didn't exist.

That boy sat before the Sandaime, still looking down at his hands not letting his tears fall. The old man sighed, silently thinking of the situation. He still had to give him his punishments for his pranks, but he was concerned for Naruto's education. He was disappointed that the village made the blonde a pariah than a hero and the boy always was a ball of sunshine, a contagious smile and laugh that brightened anyone's heart, yet no one ever sees this, just the boy that holds the fox. This lead to Naruto living alone in an apartment, lack of education and playing pranks anywhere and everywhere to let them know he existed. Sarutobi was the leader, but he can't always help the boy when he has to worry about the prosperity and safety of the village, but he did what he could and that would mean he'll help the boy learn more; he'll first have to get him with a different teacher. Maybe Naruto will have a more positive motivation read.

"I don't see what's so great to read, it's boring."

Scratch that.

Sarutobi rubbed his face with his hands as he spoke to the boy again. "Reading is important so you can understand how things work-"

"I can learn by 'exi', 'exb' by the stuff I do."

"Learn to understand the big words and to give reports to your team or me-"

"But you hate looking at those; I hear you whine about them all the time."

The old man gave him an annoyed look. "I don't whine, I complain, but that's beside the point. Think of all the stories you could read, you have a big imagination that can be inspired by them."

"But it takes too long to read."

"Then maybe a sort of book with pictures you could-!" Naruto was starting to argue again, as the Hokage rubbed his chin in thought, when the old man's eyes lit up at a sudden idea. His robed arm shot up his hand in summon.

"Cat!"

To Naruto's awe a figure melted through the floorboards into a kneeling position on the left side of the desk. The figure was a woman with shoulder length lavender hair and wore the regalia of the ANBU guard: black tight sleeveless shirt under the white light torso armor, long black glove covered by armored arm bands and hand guards, black pants tied at the leg but long belted shinobi sandals, a sword secured to her back, the inter-swirled tattoo symbol of the ANBU on her left shoulder, and upon her face was a white mask of a cat with blue swirling whiskers. Naruto sort of remembered the cat masked lady, for she took care of him when he was little, there were others but he only remembered her and one with a dog mask who did these awesome ball tricks to make him smile, and if he remembered right he had another mask under his mask and the tiny blond would always try to get it off, much the dog masked man's amusement. He hadn't seen either of them in a long time. Further thoughts were interrupted by the firm voice of the arrived ANBU.

"Hai, Hokage-sama?"

"Cat could you please go to my estate to my main office and look under the desk? You'll find a box of old, worn books; look for one that is yellow and blue. It'll have a picture on the cover that looks like…" The Hokage paused to think of a description. "Like a big yellow mouse with red cheeks and a zigzag tail." He motioned with his hand to describe the tail. The ANBU took a moment to take in the command and description or she may think the old man was going senile; Naruto couldn't tell. Then she bowed her head.

"Hai, be back in a moment."

The she disappeared in a 'poof' and smoke was left where she had been.

"Cool," breathed Naruto as he saw the ANBU lady leave. Now he really wanted to be a ninja so he could learn that.

"Now while we wait I can give you the rest of your punishment, including no ramen for a week."

Naruto groaned load. 'I thought the old man forgot about that. My Ramen!'

Five minutes had passed of terrible punishment giving when the hokage paused then looked to his left side of the desk. Naruto, hearing the silence looked up to see Cat in his sights. He startled a bit at her sudden appearance, and nearly fell from his chair. He pouted and blew out his cheeks when he heard the old man chuckle softly and knew somehow that the ANBU lady was smirking under that mask. He looked at her hands and saw was a worn book, like one of those big novel ones, of yellow and blue covering and just as the old man said the picture was of some yellow mouse red cheeks, small black eyes, a cute smile, brownish markings on its back, black tipped ears and the middle of the zigzag tail behind it. Naruto was looking at the cover that the ANBU presented it to the Hokage.

"Here it is Hokage-sama."

"Thank you Cat. Can you give it to Naruto, please?"

As Cat presented Naruto the book he stared at it for a bit then took it from her hands with a soft "Thank you" and looked closer at the cover. He saw words of the title but he couldn't understand them. He looked back up at the Hokage.

"What's this?"

The old man smiled at him. "I had this when I was your age from my grandfather that helped motivate me to read more."

"How? It looks like one of those 'dich', 'dicka', 'dir'-"

"Dic-tion-ary," replied Cat.

"Thank you, Cat," smiled the hokage.

"Yes, thank you Cat-san," Naruto mimicked softly, his cheeks turning rosy. He looked at the book again. "I still don't get it."

"The size and cover don't tell all, you have to look at the pages within," answered the wise Hokage.

Still doubtful, Naruto opened the book's top covering and some pages parted to reveal something that made his eyes widen, sitting in his chair straighter and exclaim in his loudest cry of "WOAH!";The sound made the hokage check if he still had his hearing. There on a page he saw an animal of some kind, and a cool looking one at that.

The main color was a darkened blue, it's body was an oval shape with a white belly and spots near its fierce looking eyes, two tall dorsal fins near the tail, on each side of its body were huge wing-like pectoral with claws on the ends with red markings on top of both, and its tail looked like it split into four long bands. It must be huge because the human picture next to it was small.(1)

'It like one of those animals Yukizu-sensei showed the class when I was in the back. What was it called…Oh yeah a 'whale', but it's doesn't look like the picture she showed. Are there more?' Naruto wondered as he turned page after page, back and forth through the book of so many different creatures: a big green dragon(2), cloud birds flying(3), small dogs breathing fire, bugs of every size, and even…gulp…ghosts, but they were still so cool. More and more came up on every page he saw; creatures that made the ground break, others made blizzards and make objects fly around. What are these cool, awesome animals? Are they real? Naruto was so enthralled in the book as his smile became bigger and his feet swung back and forth happily under his chair.

Hiruzen smiled gratefully as he watched that the blonde was practically jumping in his chair. He remembered that book from when his grandfather gave it to him. The creatures, he believed were based on legends from old times to maybe before the tailed demons, 'bijuu', appeared. Now that he thought about it, his senseis, the previous Hokages before him, were real believers of their existence. His friends however just passed it as fiction and even he, as e grew older and more responsibilities. By the Konoha-Iwa war he had completely forgotten about it after he put it in that box. He hadn't thought of it until he found out about Naruto's lack of education. When he had thought of books and scrolls Naruto might read, he racked his brain for something until the book came to his mind. He didn't know if it was proof his old brain cells were still working or just some luck.

Yet he could have sworn that the idea was placed in his head from an outside force.

'But it still could be my old mind playing tricks,' thought Sarutobi as he looked back at Naruto, almost nearly standing on his chair. Hiruzen smiled at the boy. 'Whatever the reason, the result is now that Naruto has something to get him focused to read.'

Judging by his stature the Hokage prepared himself for a 'Naruto Burst', as he called it, right…about………………….now!

'WHAT ARE THEY? THEY'RE SO COOL! DO THEY HAVE A NAME? CAN THEY REALLY DO THIS STUFF? ARE THEY REAL? PLEASE JIJI! TELL ME, TELL ME, TELL ME, TELL ME PLEASE!"

He had prepared for the outburst but not having Naruto jump on his desk and shove the open book to his face. The page was of a giant blue bug with a t shaped horn on its head(4). He faintly heard a soft giggle from the ANBU next to him she took the boy from the desk back to his chair. Naruto blushed a bit when he realized his action and smiled sheepishly at the old man with his hand behind his head.

"Hee,hee, sorry Hokage-jiji," Naruto apologized. The hokage couldn't help but smile back, he was somewhat relieved Naruto went back to his own honorifics. The boy looked back at the pages again, flipping through the pictures. "They're just so cool. They're real, right? Are they called something?" Naruto looked back at the hokage expecting his answer but the old man had something else in mind.

"I'm afraid I can't tell you that, Naruto," said the hokage as he leaned back into his chair, his face looking like a grandfather telling a child that he couldn't have a cookie. As predicted the blonde went from wide-eyed to a scowl, he puffed his cheeks and straighten in his chair.

"Why Not?" he exclaimed angrily.

The old man raised a hand to calm the boy, and to secretly check his hearing. "Now, Naruto I can't tell you what they are. Where's the challenge then?"

The boy raised an eyebrow, "Huh, a what?"

"A challenge Naruto is something that others will get you to do the find out something or win for the fun of it," explained the Hokage as he pointed at the book in Naruto's lap. "My challenge to you Naruto is to read this whole book and when you finish it not only will it help you to read better, it'll also help you learn the shinobi scrolls and books to be one. Thus another step won to be Hokage".

Naruto looked down at the book again, looking thoughtful. He wanted to know what these animals are, but he had to find out himself? But reading looked boring from what the other side of the class but then he thought of what of what the old man telling him of things he could get from it to be Hokage. If this 'chall-enge' can do that for him then what should stop him? He never backed down from anything Kiba Inuzuka bet him to do so he won't with this. He won't back down from this.

Then the Hokage sealed the deal.

"Complete this whole book Naruto and I'll treat you ramen for a week."

Naruto straightened sharply looking back to the amused old man with a determined face, his eyes focused ahead. His smile only added on the confidence he was building.

"No sweat. I'll get this reading down before I be a ninja." He stood from his chair to point at the smiling Hokage. "And before you know it I'll be wearing that hat Hokage-oji-sama, you just wait."

Sarutobi smiled at that and moved to lean forward to his desk. "Alright then, Naruto. Tomorrow I'll have someone come to help you with the first steps, then after you learn that you can go on your own if you wish." Then he witnessed something very rare; something even he hardly sees. The blonde boy's eyes started to water, and there on the boy's face was a small genuine smile. For this was his first true gift given to him like any normal boy. This smile of gratitude reminded Hiruzen of another smile, a smile from a father leaving his child and a promise to him to take care of this child. Though Sarutobi always felt he never really had done enough but this smile alone lifted his heart and drove him further to give this boy the happiness he deserved. The boy bowed to him then came up again with a wide smile.

"Thank you, Hokage-sama."

With a nod of dismissal from the old man, Naruto walked to the door with his new/old book in his arms. He'll beat this 'chall-enge' in no time.

"Just make sure to do your punishments in the meantime."

Naruto face faulted, then stood and turned slowly to the smiling and waving Hokage. "You just had to ruin the moment didn't you old man," he mumbled quietly, then smiled cheekily. "Just keep that seat warm for me, Jiji!" With that he walked out the door with a click.

Hiruzen chuckled at the boy's antic as he exited and leaned back into his chair and sighed heavily.

"That boy is going to wear me out."

Cat, quiet throughout the exchange, turned her head to the Hokage.

"Permission to speak freely, sir?"

The Hokage turned to her quizzically, "You may."

"I apologize, I looked into that book myself and I must say that it's very detailed and described very thoroughly and the pictures looked very realistic." She paused for a moment for the Hokage to digest her comment. "Almost as if the creatures, these 'Pokémon', truly existed." The Hokage sat up from his chair then walked to the window facing his village. Cat watched him as he placed his arms behind his back, still looking out. "Is it wise to give that boy false hope of the creatures existence?"

Hiruzen looked to the busy street below watching the village mingle, shop and run to work. Children played and chased each other, he always smiled at that but not the one he searched for. He didn't look in the big crossroads or the shops, but there in an alley on the side in his sights, a speck of blonde yellow walked along looking into his new/old book, avoiding the busy street mostly from the glares and hatred from the villagers. It saddened Sarutobi to see that Naruto has to hide from the people but he knew the boys pranks will be back to show them that he was still there. The Hokage smiled from his view point, as he saw an excited smile on the boy's face as he flipped the pages to the different pictures. That was a sign of hope for the future of the blonde and the village.

"In this world, life is all a mystery, only when we see it through our own eyes do we believe of its existence. Yet, for when something that does not seem real, dreamers are inspired to pursue that they truly exist and in the meanwhile improve themselves to make their own life worthwhile." He then turned to his ANBU. His eyes portrayed a tired old man but his presence radiated as her wise and powerful leader. "Let the boy dream. So he may be inspired to improve his own life to make it worthwhile."

Silence filled the office between the two until the ANBU nodded to the Hokage sat back in his chair, sighing then groaning when he saw his old enemy, paperwork. Not denying his imminent paper fate, he took up his pen then looked at Cat and smiled.

"Thank you for your assistance today, Cat. Could you call to get Iruka Umino to my office please." 'He'll be a good tutor for Naruto. They have some things in common that could help them both.' "Then you are free for the rest of the day. Now I have to do this paperwork I ignored, thanks to Naruto," he complained (Whined) quietly, hoping Cat didn't hear him.

"Hai, Hokage-sama."

He sighed, relieved at that until…

"One more thing sir…Uzumaki-san was right, you do whine."

She disappeared in a puff of smoke and leaving with a slight giggle behind for the mock-angered Hokage to scoff at the spot she left.

"Oh, honestly. The cheek of that boy is contagious." He chuckles, shook his head, and returned to the paper piles.

The lone figure watched silently through the Hokage office window from its viewpoint on the Yondaime Hokage's stone head of the monument. It's hand glowed a strange blue light before fading, its task done. The aura of a smile resonated in the air. Its voice a near disembodied tenor.

"Phase one, complete."

Then it fazed and vanished from view.

That was the prolouge, hoped you like it. Please leave comments, just don't be too hard on me.

Pokemon listed from the story: 1) Kyogre

2) Rayquaza

3) Swablu and Altaria

4) Heracross