Kyuubi1600: This is just me reposting these chapters. for a better explination, read chapter 1 of Wastelander!

In the alleyway behind a house, a boy with hair in the shape of a duck's ass was running the trash out to the trash cans in the alley. After dumping the bag, the dark haired boy stalked off to sleep and plan revenge on his brother.

Unseen by the boy, a shadow detached itself from the darkness and began rummaging quietly in the can. After 10 minutes, the shadow departed with dented and rusted kunai and several old jutsu scrolls pertaining to Uchiha techniques and new books for studying fuuinjutsu.

Hiruzen Sarutobi was tired. It had been 8 years since the Kyuubi attack and the civilian council was hounding him still for the execution of Naruto. The boy was just a single year away from entering the Academy and they won't be able to touch him. Thankfully Danzou managed to make it so that the civilians and the other clan heads thought that he wanted Naruto to turn him into a weapon. But that couldn't be farther from the truth. Danzou wanted to keep the boy away from the cruelty that the civilians and certain shinobi wanted to put the boy through. He may be a war hawk, but even he knew that turning the boy into a mindless weapon would be disastrous. ROOT was continued, but on a lesser scale and was a very unique branch of ANBU with the approval of the Hokage. Going back to the subject: there were times that both the ex-ROOT leader and Hokage could not locate the boy and neither could find him. He just disappeared off the face of the earth at times. Both ANBU divisions did their damn best effort to locate the boy but could never find hide or hair of him. Naruto was like a ghost. They knew that he existed, but he was like smoke at times.

Sarutobi was working late in his office, trying to finish some last minute paperwork. He found another request from a civilian council member for the marriage of Sasuke Uchiha and his daughter. Torching the paper with a Katon jutsu, he moved to the next article when a knock was heard on his door. "Enter." The aged Hokage replied.

The door opened to reveal Danzou. "Sarutobi-sama, what on earth are you still doing up? The paperwork isn't going anywhere."

"Ha! It may not go anywhere but it grows and grows every second!" the Sandaime Hokage chuckled. "I don't know if its replication seals, or if it is actually plotting ways to paper cut me to death, but it is worse than Kyuubi."

"I may have something on that front."

Sarutobi grew serious. Pulling out his pipe, he motioned for the elder to continue.

"I believe that Naruto is talking with it." Danzou supplied as he sat on the couch. "When you consider it, that kitsune is more than likely the only person who can teach the level of stealth Naruto may be using. My ROOT agents are not even close to him in terms of stealth, but luck shined on them tonight."

"What happened?"

"One of the agents, Sai if I'm not mistaken, is tasked with watching the Uchiha and seeing if there is any way to deter him from the destructive path he is following. Sasuke took out the trash tonight, throwing away old scrolls and books on sealing. As the Uchiha left, Sai saw a shadow detach itself from the opposite side of the alley and rummage through the can. He activated his night vision goggles and found that it was Naruto."

"How is the boy?" Sarutobi inquired.

"He is malnourished and scared according to Sai's report. The only food he has been able to get is from Ichiraku's when he can afford it. If the state of his clothes is anything to go by, he has been out of the orphanage for at least 2 or 3 months, maybe longer."

"Now that I think about it, a couple of the clans have reported something or someone rummaging through their garbage at random times. They have tried to catch the culprit, but they just slip out of their grasp." Sarutobi added. "Do you think that it's him?"

"More than likely. I do know that the child may have inherited Minato's mind. I mean, look at his pranks. He can pull them off and no one can point a finger at him or he is within the law for doing it." Danzou supplied.

The Hokage pulled out his viewing orb. "Let us see if we can find him."

The orb glowed, and the fog departed to reveal the Mitsurugi Weapon's shop forge. There were several seals around the general area, more than likely stopping the sound. Naruto was in front of the furnace, shirt less and sweating from the heat exposure. Danzou commented. "He is going to have fan girls when he is older."

"Yes, but that may not happen until he does something to save the village or he is over 18." Hiruzen sighed.

Naruto pulled something out of the forge and proceeded to pound on the item with a hammer. After about a half hour, the two spies saw that he was making a pair of shin guards.

"What is he up to?"

Sarutobi snorted. "He's making a pair of shin guards. Is your eyesight going already?"

Danzou leveled a glare at the aged Hokage. "I get that, but if you notice, he's reading a book on sealing too."

Hiruzen took a closer look. Sure enough, there was a book near the working boy that he kept looking back at. After a few more minutes, he shut down the forge and took his supplies and book away. After that, the viewing orb lost track of him after he went into the street leading to the training grounds and flashed a single sentence on it: 'Target lost, you peeping asshole.'

Naruto chomped on some popcorn in one of his hideaways that he had around Konoha as he watched one of his favorite movies. This particular one was located just inside the Forest of Death. He had outfitted this hideaway as his home. The best way to describe it was to take the ultimate bachelor's pad and throw in shelves full of scrolls and some of the best furniture and electronics money could buy.

But Naruto never bought anything except for his meals. Everything he had had been from the trash. The richer people often got something and not even a week later they throw it out because it wasn't 'fashionable'. The trash collectors were friends of Naruto's and sometimes helped him by holding on to heavy furniture that Naruto wanted but couldn't move it. If it was a good night and no mobs were chasing him, he could move larger things. And he could do it by himself too, but he liked the trash collectors and wanted to talk with them at times.

Unknown to anyone except for the Sandaime and Danzou, Kyuubi did talk to her host. When they first met, she shattered the 50 seals that he had on him that were supposed to stop his growth. Yes, Kyuubi is a she. When you think about it, women are the strongest creatures on the planet. After all, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Anyways, she also enhanced his memory almost to the point of being photographic. If she had gone any farther, he would be having flash backs that would land him in the crazy ward. But she enhanced him and willingly gave him control of her chakra, but told him that he could not use it until he found someone to train him with it.

Despite the enhancements Kyuubi made, she still needed to help him train his body. So, she taught him about being a jack of all spades. She trained him (mentally of course) in a variety of styles. To name a few, there was parkour (A/N: spelling?), the Assassin style that allowed one to move through crowds and areas without being actively noticed, Gambit: the style of thieves and rogues that allowed one to move in the shadows and strike only to fade into the wind, Kitsune: the style of foxes and vixens that allowed one to play around with their enemies before going for the kill, and the pranking: the style that could only be used by expert pranksters if they could find a master to teach them. Naruto was at the intermediate level with all of them. She also made him learn sealing, which he took to like a fish to water.

Then came the equipment.

As many readers know, Naruto was not allowed to enter many establishments, including shinobi supply shops. So he did the next best option: scrounge the tools and supplies and make your own. What Danzou and Sandaime witnessed was the result of training. He had been going over plans for a couple of weeks on various armor pieces and weapons.

Naruto continued to watch his movie called Iron Man 2. When it came to the part where the suit was pulled out of a briefcase, Naruto had to chuckle. Movies were such great ways to get inspiration, no?

Pulling his eyes from his movie, his gaze wandered over to the small pile of files he had on his desk. Naruto knew that he had a year until he was eligible to enter the Academy, but that didn't mean that he couldn't scout potential teammates. But there was a problem. A majority of the class he was joining were fan girls or children of the civilian council. That knocked off a large chunk of the options, but he did come up with 8 other potential teammates. After watching/spying on them for a couple of weeks, he came down to 3.

First was an Akimichi named Choji. The boy was rather rotund, but that didn't stop Naruto. Choji was a bit of a loner when he wasn't hanging out with Shikamaru Nara. The reason was because of the fact that the other kids thought that he was useless. But help comes from the strangest of places. Unknown to the bullies, Choji was physically the strongest kid Naruto could find aside from Rock Lee. But the rotund boy had one of the biggest hearts that Naruto had ever seen. This led to him being picked on by the bullies, while earning him the nickname 'the Fatty Baby'. Better than demon, I suppose.

Second was a boy named Shino Aburame. This was a tough nut to crack. Shino was barely seen outside of his compound. But Naruto gleaned a lot from Shino's time out of the compound. Shino was tolerated, but barely due to his family's tradition of allowing the destruction bugs to reside in their bodies. Shino had a brilliant mind. He analyzed every situation and managed to find a way to get the middle ground. Naruto could already see the ideas that Shino could create using his bugs and had to refrain from drooling over the idea.

The third person he found was in his opinion the crown jewel of the team. Hinata Hyuuga was a kind and gentle soul. He also found that she frequently followed/stalked him and could gain some insight on her. She was one of the wielders of the kekkei genkai Byakugan, one of the three great doujutsus. From what Naruto gathered, she was the black sheep of the Hyuuga clan. She was loved by the Branch family due to her refusal to use the Caged Bird seal and hated by the Hyuuga elders because she was kind hearted and didn't use the seal. From what he could tell, the girl was not weak, rather she lacked confidence in her skills and was repeatedly put down because of it. Her sister was not stronger. Hinata didn't want to harm her only sibling and force her into the Branch family. With these facts alone, he could see that she was very strong. She just needed to get on the confidence steroids to help her. Or he needed to ask her out. Either would work to Hinata's and Naruto's interest.

Now, he just needed to bring up the idea of the secondary team to Jiji-san and get it approved.

'Naruto.'

'Hey, Akane-chan. How was your nap?'

'Unpleasant due to someone banging on metal. You should have waited until I was up!'

'By then the coals would have been cold.' Naruto shot back. 'Any ways, what's your take on this batch?'

The vixen was quiet as she scanned through the memories. 'Very nice craftsmanship, Naruto. Are the seals applied?'

'Hai, now I just need to make the other pieces, but for now,' Naruto pulled out a box. 'I need to talk to Jiji to get the plan going.'

The next day

Naruto snuck by the secretary in the Hokage tower and knocked on the door. He was answered with an 'Enter' and quietly opened the door and closed before crying, "Jiji, how's the back?"

Sarutobi scowled at the boy. "My back is fine, you little monkey! Now, what can I do for you?"

"I want to make a secondary team."

"Oh? Enlighten me."

"I know that we have the regular 4 man cells of one jounin and 3 genin, but I want to put together a team of genin that can do anything jounin level and specialize in a specific area. This team will work on regular missions if the other team members are indisposed."

Hiruzen leaned back and took a huff of his pipe. "Your idea has merit. I take it you want to team up with some of the genin in your class?"

"Hai."

"Do you have any preference who?"

"Hai. I've observed most of my class mates and came up with 3 potential teammates." Naruto reached up and handed the aged Hokage the files.

The Sandaime opened the first file. "Choji Akimichi?"

"If I can figure out a training schedule, he would be our heavy lifter and hitter. I would need to see if the Akimichi clan has any jutsu for moving the position of some of his puffiness so that he could pull off stealth missions and what not."

"Interesting choice." Sarutobi opened the second file. "Shino Aburame?"

"Tracking mainly, but again, with enough training he could pull off heavy assault too."

"Your choices are getting peculiar and peculiar." He opened the final file. "Hinata Hyuuga?"

"Torture. I thought Anko-chan and Ibiki-san wouldn't mind teaching someone their methods so that they don't get swamped with work if we capture some one out on the field. The main problem with her is that her confidence and self-esteem is rather low. But training with me should help her."

"Naturally," he closed the file. "and yourself?"

"Seals. I've read 7 of the ten Sealing and Fuuinjutsu series, so I'm intermediate at the moment." Naruto reported. "Trust me, I've given this a lot of thought."

"How would you hide your skills?"

"Masks. Not the ones like Neko-chan and the others wear, but proverbial ones. Choji will only show off his clans jutsus and be friends with Shikamaru and eat a lot. Shino will be like Choji: clan jutsus only. Hinata will just need to act as she is now. I will just be the class clown and the kid that wears the orange jumpsuit and cries "Believe it!" at the end of the majority of my sentences. I'll even pretend to like someone like Sakura Haruno to keep it in place."

"In other words, you will become enigmas."

"Exactly." Naruto sat back.

"Who will teach you? Most of the Jounin have already either taken teams or are far to busy to teach."

"Akane-chan."

Sarutobi blinked. "Who?"

"Kyuubi-chan."

"Why?"

"Primarily, she is bored. But she has lived for thousands of years and has a lot of experience under her belt. She's the one who taught me how to stop your viewing orb and how to avoid the ANBU."

Sarutobi was gobbsmacked. It was a perfect idea. "Naruto, how can you do all this?"

"Akane-chan shattered the 50 other seals I had on me and enhanced my brain." He patted his stomach. "She even gave me full control of her chakra, but told me to wait until I found someone to train with."

"Very well. And what will your teams name be?"

Naruto just smiled.

That evening

Hinata entered her room after another brutal training time. She fell over on to her bed and silently cried into her pillow. Feeling something under her pillow, she pulled out a letter and an envelope addressed to her.

She opened it to find a hand written letter and a pendant in the shape of a dragon's scale. Putting the pendant off to the side, she pulled out the letter.

Aburame estate

Shino placed the pendant down and read the letter:

Shino-san

You have been chosen to be apart of a new experiment. You will not be tested on, but rather you will be the tester. The experiment is the creation of a 4 man team of genin that will have Jounin level skills and specialize in a certain area. You will be the tracking.

All teammates of this squad will be spread out through the genin teams, but you will be able to recognize them due to you all wearing similar pendants. If you choose to accept, place one drop of blood on the pendant and send a pulse of chakra into the necklace.

The team leader will be wearing the golden pendant.

Hiruzen Sarutobi

Sandaime Hokage

Shin turned to the pendant and placed it in his hand.

Akimichi estate

Choji pricked his finger on a kunai and let the single droplet fall on to the scale. Wrapping his hand around the pendant, he pulsed his chakra into it. Opening his hand, he was awarded with the sight of now blue and purple scale that was projecting one simple line that changed his life.

Welcome to the Outcasts