A Big Problem

[Academy]

"FAIL."

Of course he had. He'd already done so more than once before. A certain downtrodden, but otherwise familiar-looking blond left the testing room, leaving behind the scarred instructor.

He was simply unable to perform a jutsu. Any jutsu, or at least any that used chakra. He could focus on trying to form the chakra to make the techniques, but whenever he tried, it just didn't work. Like the chakra was unstable, somehow. Last year, he had a sort-of friend in a similar situation, but he had since left the academy, presumably having given up. Now he was the only one with the dubious distinction, watching his more successful classmates finishing their practical ninjutsu exams, from the stuck-up-but-actually-effective Sasuke, to the obsessive-but-smart Sakura, to the less-active-than-the-bed-he-sleeps-on-but-also-really-smart Shikamaru.

He envied them, but he wasn't done. The blond boy Konoha knew as Naruto Uzumaki wasn't going to quit now. His pride just wouldn't let him. Even if it seemed like everyone else was destined to be a better ninja, that pride wouldn't let him give up. No, he was certain he could be, would be more than he was, more than they were. More than they could be.

[Outside]

It wasn't much later in the day. One of the instructors, a silver-haired chunin by the name of Mizuki, had found the blond outside, furiously running through hand signs while trying to mould his strangely disrupted chakra.

"You know, it's not strictly a requirement that you be able to perform jutsu to become a ninja," the silver-haired instructor mentioned, gaining the blond boy's attention immediately.

"It's not?" he asked, his hopes rising.

"You remember Lee from last year? He couldn't use ninjutsu or genjutsu, either, and he'll never be able to," Mizuki explained. "He graduated and became a genin last year," the instructor finished with a reassuring smile.

"He did? He became a ninja?" He did indeed remember Lee, or Rock Lee. As the other person in class that was unable to use jutsu, he was quite memorable. Even if not for that quasi-kinship, his semi-friend's impressive eyebrows would've made him hard to forget. But reminiscing on his fellow jutsu-less former classmate, the genin-hopeful focused on the implications. "How? How did he graduate? How can I graduate without jutsu?"

"Rock Lee sufficiently impressed jounin Might Guy. Guy then took him under his wing and made him his apprentice." This was something new to the red-orange-clad genin hopeful. It was his chance, his chance to become a ninja directly, without worrying about the exam! Wait, did that mean he could've skipped that tedious written section, too? Well, he'd already done it, so no sense crying about it. Also, there were ninjas with wings? Sometimes idioms were lost on the blond boy. "In fact, I know of a jounin who you could impress into becoming your sensei with a certain task," Mizuki stated.

That was it. Whatever the instructor said from here on would be essentially taken as truth by the blond, ignoring any other oddities such as why Iruka-sensei had never mentioned this possibility, and his vague gut feelings about the silver-haired man. He was too desperate to trust vague feelings now. "Who? How?"

"The jounin wishes to remain anonymous for now, until the task is completed," the instructor said, slightly calming the energetic youth. "As to the task itself..."

[In the Hokage's tower]

That night, the blond crept through the Hokage's tower-like residence carefully, seeking out the Scroll of Seals, an extraordinarily large scroll he had seen there before. Successfully taking it would be proof to his mysterious would-be jounin-sensei that he could be a successful ninja! Though he wasn't normally one to get really worked up all the time, the sheer excitement he felt at the prospect would have him jumping up and down if not for the fact that he was currently trying to be stealthy. He took pride in his ability to be stealthy, and he didn't want to mess up the ninja skills he was good at when trying to make up for those he lacked. He also wondered if maybe being stealthy and still while excessively excited was specifically part of the test

The Hokage, to the blond's fortune, seemed to be out at the moment. He'd been managed to avoid the few live-in workers there, as he sought out the room where the scroll he sought was kept.

Soon enough, he had the rather absurdly-sized roll of paper (seriously, would it have killed the Hokages past or present to start "the Scroll of Seals, Volume 2"?) and was making his way out with it. As far as he could tell, he was completely undetected.

[Outskirts of Konoha]

On the outskirts of Konoha, a blond boy sat in the moonlight with the sizeable Scroll of Seals partially unfurled, waiting near some hideout for Mizuki and the yet-unnamed jounin. The blond studied the various writings of the scroll, hoping against hope that maybe, just maybe, there would be a jutsu he could actually use. The first one, which sounded like a fun jutsu to instantly make a personal army, sadly did not work for the boy.

Several others didn't seem like jutsu he'd want to use even if he was capable of it. He wasn't that interested in human sacrifice, of either himself or someone nearby, which cut out the potential list considerably. Even so, he supposed he wouldn't have been able to learn these more complex jutsu either, given his failure to use relatively simple jutsu up to then.

Soon enough, his musings were interrupted, hopefully by his examiners.

"Naruto!" shouted an irate academy instructor. Iruka, the blond recognized. He was most definitely not Mizuki nor, as far as the blond boy knew, a jounin. Maybe he'd been promoted? Or maybe he'd been taken Mizuki's place as his jounin's go-between?

"Oh, hello, Iruka-sensei," replied the indicated blond, turning to his favorite instructor, though Mizuki had been making headway recently with this newest opportunity. "I managed to get the scroll!" Then the would-be ninja began to notice his sensei's tone of voice and general body language. They certainly weren't congratulatory. Indeed, few would attribute them to a proud sensei. His own face began to betray a hint of fear and confusion, and his good mood began to dip a bit.

[Outskirts of Konoha]

"What are you doing!?" the chunin yelled. He was hoping Mizuki had been wrong when he was informed of his blond student's thievery, but the instructor saw him sitting the dangerous scroll now. "You've stolen an incredibly dangerous item, and now the entire town is up in alarm looking for you!"

"What!? I was just doing what Mizuki-sensei said!" responded Naruto, his voice with the same hint of fear and confusion of his face.

"What... Mizuki said?" The chunin's face began to show confusion as well.

"He said that if I could sneak into the Hokage's tower, take this big scroll, and escape to here with it, I'd get to learn to be a ninja from a jounin!"

Iruka was trying to...get through the implications of this. Iruka had, in fact, been informed earlier by Mizuki that Naruto had stolen the scroll. Now the blond was seemingly trying to lie to him? Iruka hadn't known the blond boy to be particularly deceptive in the years he'd known him, but the alternative...was that...that Mizuki had lied to him? Had Mizuki used Naruto to steal the scroll? Was his childhood friend and co-instructor of many years was a traitor?

No! Iruka wanted to hit himself. Standard transformation was an academy-level jutsu. He knew that; he was an academy instructor himself! It didn't take particular skill to fool an academy student with one. Most any ninja, from Konoha or not, could've transformed to look like Mizuki and use his emotionally vulnerable student to steal important and dangerous secrets from Konoha.

"Naruto, what have you done!?" yelled another voice the indicated blond and the scarred instructor recognized. This was Mizuki now, or if not, was under a good enough transformation that Iruka couldn't tell the difference.

"M-Mizuki-sensei!" stuttered the blond slightly. "You've got to tell him! I was supposed to take this scroll to pass!"

"I don't know what you're talking about," the newly-arrived silver-haired instructor replied, sounding even more irate as his co-worker. "Is this some kind of story you're weaving to get away with stealing?"

"Iruka, you've got to believe me! He talked to me outside after I failed the test!" the boy pleaded with his other instructor. "He said how Rock Lee became a ninja by impressing a winged jounin!"

"...What?" was all that the pony-tailed instructor could respond.

"Naruto," has co-instructor Mizuki began in a somewhat mocking tone, "to 'take someone under your wing' doesn't mean the person literally has wings..." Iruka turned to him, a little suspicious.

"Mizuki?" he began. "Naruto didn't say anything about anyone taking anyone else under their wing."

[Outskirts of Konoha]

A mistake. The silver-haired instructor went into damage control. "I-I overheard the original conversation," he explained, silently cursing when he realized that he had just made his situation much worse in his attempt to fix it. Why didn't he just say he had guessed it was the idiom? No, why did he think to correct the boy's misunderstanding now!? Why was Iruka even here!? He had to tell him to seem legitimate, but he really, really had expected to be the first to find the wayward blond.

"You overheard him talking with someone impersonating you?" Iruka questioned, calm at first, but sounding more and more uncertain. "And you didn't think to stop it? Or report it?" Dammit. He was supposed to be able to off the little demon playing at ninja, take the scroll, and be on his merry way!

Now, though it was falling apart, and soon he'd be dealing with a chunin in combat. Not that he held his co-worker and admittedly once-friend up as a standard of ninja skill, but he was certainly no jutsu-less academy student. He had to act now, before the other instructor worked up the nerve. So, he took out a brace of shuriken and sent them flying.

However, Iruka Umino wasn't a chunin for nothing, and he quickly jumped back to avoid the sudden attack. Mizuki considered the situation. If the battle picked up now, it could be two-on-one, if the blond attacked back. Those weren't odds he wanted, the boy wasn't experienced, and he wanted to kill the demon anyway. No time left to think, he had to act now.

He quickly grabbed out an already-loose giant shuriken and let it fly at the failed academy student, hoping to remove him from the fight immediately. The boy didn't have the years of experience of his fellow instructor, and was about to be slain by the spinning metal weapon.

If not for that fellow instructor.

[Outskirts of Konoha]

The sickening sound of one of the sharp metal blades of the giant shuriken burying itself in his favorite instructor and indeed one of the few people he could call a friend shook the boy to the core. "I-I-Iruka?" he barely got out. About twenty feet away from where he had been starting to stand with the scroll, Iruka had jumped between himself and the traitor's weapon. He started to lose his balance, falling down onto his hands, his thoughts completely awry.

This was wrong. Iruka didn't get hurt. This was wrong. Iruka never got hurt, not really, and not for him. In some absolute universal way, the blond knew that what had just happened was wrong. But that didn't change reality. He still saw Iruka's back, a metal blade piercing slightly through a bit on the side, and blood running down his vest.

He hardly even heard the traitor's response to the situation. "I don't understand why you'd want to protect him, Iruka," Mizuki said with a smug tone and a smirk. "After all, didn't he murder your parents? He's the...the...he's...he..." The blond didn't even notice how the traitor didn't finish his sentence, or how his smirk fell into a slack jaw, or how his eyes widened in their sockets.

[Hokage's Office]

The Hokage had thought something was amiss when he sensed the blond academy student sneaking through his residence. He'd instructed those present to avoid alerting him that they were aware of his presence, to see what he would do. It was abnormal for the boy to do something like this, so Hiruzen Sarutobi suspected there was another player in this scheme.

As such, he sent several ANBU agents to discretely follow the boy and figure out who was behind the scheme, while he observed from the crystal ball in his office, raising the alarm in the village after a bit to match the expectations of the unseen agent. Eventually, the blond stopped in the forests outside of town, a proud look on his face, as the undetected ANBU began to discretely circle the area.

The boy then stopped to read the scroll, the proud look quickly becoming a frustrated one as he tried out various seals, to no avail. If the Hokage hadn't known how his poor chakra control prevented him from using jutsu, he might have been worried, but the unstable flow prevented him from molding any of the dangerous jutsu in the scroll.

He was alarmed at first when chunin and academy instructor Iruka Umino was the first to arrive, but thankfully, he was just chasing his student due to the alarm and genuine concern for the boy. He was again alarmed when chunin and academy instructor Mizuki arrived, and turned out to indeed be a traitor he was thankful Iruka hadn't been.

He saw his ANBU beginning to move in when Mizuki suddenly attacked twice in rapid succession, wounding the self-sacrificing Iruka, who would be getting a raise when all of this was over. It was time for the ANBU make the arrest and get the wounded teacher to a hospital after quick field patching, and none too soon, as the Hokage's stiff grip on the crystal ball betrayed his nerves through the incident.

And then, Hiruzen Sarutobi saw something else. Something that neither he nor anyone else in Konoha had ever wanted to see again. The crystal ball cracked between the Hokage's anxiously crushing hands, and the God of Shinobi jumped as quickly as he could out of his office window. Still wearing his formal robes of office, he moved with his top speed, crossing town in a matter of seconds with chained body flickers, hoping against hope that he might stop what he saw.

[In Konoha]

The alarm raised in the village about the stolen scroll had the shinobi out searching and keeping alert, but nobody was expecting anything too major to come of it. Suddenly, though, everyone, shinobi or civilian, could feel something washing over the town. It was like a massive, overwhelming, horrifying, suffocating, and for some, worst of all, familiar presence. An absurd level of chakra was flaring from somewhere on the edge of town, and radiating a killing intent that paralysed people throughout the village.

It was visible just over the trees. Illuminated in the moonlight, gigantic orange-red appendages were clearly visible over a mostly-concealed body. The Nine-Tailed Demon Fox, the very monster that twelve years ago had ravaged their town and slaughtered their families, was there, fully formed, within the walls of Konoha once again.

[Closer]

Hiruzen Sarutobi was on the scene as quickly as possible, summoning King Enma for whatever combat could be managed to push back the beast. Nearby, every single elite jounin or ANBU in the village was quickly gathering for the confrontation.

The beast was laying down, crushed trees beneath its body. The Hokage morbidly suspected that there were also crushed ANBU agents that hadn't been able to get out in time when it appeared, but that was a concern for later.

The fox's tails moved slowly, unlike the vicious thrashing they had displayed when it first attacked. It's eyes were half-closed, and its limbs spread out on the ground, not propping it up. Then the eyes caught sight of the old Hokage, and both opened fully. The beast's lips opened slightly, revealing horrifying, sharp teeth. The God of Shinobi prepared for battle.

But he wasn't prepared for what happened next, as the horrible killing intent suddenly subsided and the fox's massive jaw began to move.

"O-o-old man? W-w-what's going on? W-what happened?" it said with a deep, booming voice, its head turning and looking around. "W-why are all t-these people here? A-and...why are you all so small?"