When all the commotion was over and Iruka in the hospital, Naruto could finally go home. Once in his own silent apartment, he sat on his bed, his head in his hands.

Mizuki's words were still ringing in his ears.

"You are the Nine Tailed Fox. Nobody told you, but they all hate you. They will never accept you!"

Iruka-sensei accepted him, even liked him, Hokage-jiji too.

But…

Naruto didn't quite get it. They accepted him despite being the Kyuubi? He killed… all those people. He must have, they taught about the Kyuubi attack in the Academy. And the deaths during it. Did Hokage-jiji and Iruka-sensei like him, because he didn't remember? He was a demon all his life and because he never knew, so he wasn't dangerous? Is that why no one ever told him?

Naruto pushed the heels of his palms into his eyes, until it hurt and black spots appeared under his eyelids. He couldn't go to sleep. There was no way he could sleep after a day like this.

Usually Naruto didn't like to think too hard about painful things. It only made it worse. It was easier to smile and prank the mean people, then make a nice bowl of ramen. Now, he couldn't stop his mind.

Demon.

He thought he could ask Iruka-sensei what kind of demon Kyuubi was. And if he really was the Kyuubi, or maybe the Fourth Hokage made him… good? Not evil? Human?

But he didn't dare. No one told him in the first place, why would they tell him anything now? What if they were afraid he might attack them? No one at the Academy liked telling and explaining him things, he remembered now. Was it because they didn't want a demon to know?

Outside, it was morning already. Birds started chirping and he could see the first shopkeepers opening bakeries and such. Naruto was tired, having not slept a wink and practising Kage Bunshin all night. He stood, suddenly determined to figure this all out on his own.

The Academy was empty when he sneaked into it. It was very early and classes wouldn't be starting for another week, when all that graduated would meet with their new teams and all that were still in the Academy started the new year. The only one that might catch him in the act was one of the teachers, but without Iruka-sensei and Mizuki, even that was unlikely.

Naruto slipped into the library, a room he didn't visit all that often if he could help it. The last time he was there, Iruka-sensei made him do an assignment he had been postponing for two weeks.

Luckily for Naruto, the system of finding books and scrolls was fairly simple, meant for kids ages six and up to about twelve. He quickly found an account of the Kyuubi attack. Reading it now, knowing it was (most likely) him, it was horrifying. The Kyuubi appeared in the middle of Konoha, its great tails waving and destroying buildings left and right. Ninjas tried to fight it, but no jutsu worked and many were killed before they even completed their technique. It was a bloodbath until the Fourth arrived and killed it. But now Naruto knew, Kyuubi wasn't killed. It couldn't be killed. It was sealed instead, into him. Made into a baby.

Turning the page, he saw a picture taken that night. It was a picture of a fox, huge and towering over the village. It was red-orange, with sharp white teeth and red slitted eyes. Each of its nine tails was as long as it was.

That was him? He looked like that? He was… scary!

Naruto's breathing picked up, his heart thundering in terror. He was afraid of himself!

Under the picture, there was a date. October tenth. His birthday.

He froze.

Did… did Hokage-jiji tell him he was born on that day, because that was the day he became human? Was his birthday… the day he attacked all those people? And he celebrated it, like it was a happy day?

Maybe, he thought with tears in his eyes, for Kyuubi it was. It liked killing, didn't it? So, other than dying/being sealed, it might be a happy day for it.

Or it was a happy day for Konoha instead, celebrating when they defeated it? Defeated him?

Naruto didn't know anymore.

He sat there, shaking over the book, trying to do anything he usually did to make himself feel better. But he couldn't grin, and his stomach felt too queasy to eat even ramen.

He stood and slammed the book closed. No more crying. He would try to find another book. What was (he) the Kyuubi like before attacking Konoha? Maybe it wasn't so bad? Naruto wasn't really evil, after all. It might be a mistake?

After some searching, he found a book of legends and spirits. It was an old, crumbling scroll, titled simply Youkai. It didn't look like it was used recently, not being a ninja book and all. Inside, Naruto found an entry on Kitsune.

...kitsune are spirit foxes, known for many magical abilities. They are masters of illusion, often leading people astray or causing mischief. Their illusions are said to be so powerful humans can't distinguish them from reality…

...fox wives are foxes of either gender, who had taken human form, usually beautiful girls and women. They are known to seduce and even marry human men, who cannot resist them…

...kitsune in human form often have trouble hiding signs of their supernatural origins. They might have a tail or light short fur on their bodies, or their faces are fox-like…

...foxes may have as many as nine tails. It is thought they gain additional tail every hundred years, increasing in power and wisdom…

...foxes have the ability to use fire and lightning, called kitsunebi…

...malevolent foxes can be appeased by offering them gifts and making them a shrine. They accept gifts of food, fruits and sake. They are always hungry…

...kitsune may possess people or take their shape, manifest in people's dreams, become invisible and even fly…

Naruto stared, wide eyed. He really was a fox. He was Kyuubi no Kitsune. He had whisker marks on his cheeks, his most powerful technique until the night before was Oiroke no Jutsu, made to deceive men. It even worked on the Hokage! Everyone screamed at him when he used it, and glared, but it still worked. He liked to prank mean people. He was always hungry and felt satisfied when he ate ramen. He had always been great at Henge and his Kage Bunshin were really good, everyone said so, and they were illusions that looked real.

He was the Kyuubi no Kitsune and he was sealed into human form. And everyone but kids his age and younger knew it.

Eyes downcast, he put everything back, except for the Youkai scroll, which he stashed into his kunai pouch. Then he fled.

He spent the rest of the day in the woods, watching his reflection in a small pond and rubbing his whiskered cheeks. He stripped his clothes and searched himself all over, but could find nothing else fox-like. In just his undies, he laid in the sun and read over the scroll, again.

Some things sounded horrible, but… kitsunebi would be awesome to master. Naruto imagined a huge ball of fire and lightning he could fling at his opponents. And flying, flying sounded cool, too. And pranks with unbeatable illusions. He promised no pranks once he became genin, but now he figured trickery was in his blood. Why shouldn't he trick people?

He would show them! He might be a demon, but he will be the best ninja demon ever!

Thus decided, he threw himself into training. He tried Kage Bunshin again, then Oiroke, noticing that as a girl he kept the whisker marks. He tried making fire as well, gathering his chakra in his palm and making throwing motions. Nothing happened. After a dozen tries, he sat down, pouting.

"Oi, you! Boss!" shouted one of the clones.

"What?" asked Naruto.

"What is that on your stomach?"

He looked down. Directly over his belly button, there was a spiral, surrounded by eight scribbles. If he squinted, it looked kind of like a sun, its rays thick and uneven.

"That… that's got to be the seal. Like Mizuki said. The one that seals me in human form." He gulped. Scary!

The Fourth Hokage made that seal. Naruto always thought of the Fourth as his hero. But… the Fourth wanted to kill him. And when he couldn't, he sealed him and turned him into a baby. And now the whole village hated him.

How could he reconcile that?

The next few days, Naruto spent a lot of time thinking. He was the Kyuubi, but he didn't want to be evil. He didn't want to kill people. He read that some foxes were nice and benevolent, guardian spirits. Maybe he could be like that too? If his spirit was evil, maybe he could calm it down? So on the third day, Naruto built a shrine. He emptied his bedside table, since it was more of a tiny closet, and a perfect hiding place for a shrine of a demon fox. He covered its insides with an orange fabric, put inside a picture of the Kyuubi torn from a book, beside it a white fox mask he bought under a Henge, and a blue candle representing the kitsunebi. In front of the shrine, he put a fancy but chipped sake cup he found in the trash, some incense sticks, and an Ofuda he copied from the scroll, said to calm malevolent spirits.

First he gave himself a thorough cleaning, again as instructed, even behind the ears and especially carefully around his belly button. He lighted the candle and incense, then kneeled before his shrine and bowed twice and clapped twice as well. The scroll said that now he should pray, but he felt weird praying to himself. In a feat of inspiration he lifted his shirt and stared at his empty stomach. Maybe he should pray to his sealed part, the part of him he couldn't remember? Squinting, he decided on a Tiger hand seal, because tigers are the most like foxes of all the hand seals he knew, and also it is often in fire jutsus. (He knew that because Sasuke-teme wouldn't shut up about it when they were learning hand seals.)

Concentrating on the hand seal, he called his chakra until his seal appeared on his belly. Then he sat still, full of gathered chakra, and thought very hard.

"I know I'm a demon. I am a Nine Tailed Demon Fox trapped in this human body. But I don't want to be evil. I don't want to kill and destroy. I want to be a guardian fox, I want to protect people. I like to play pranks on mean humans, and eat lots of ramen. And one day I want to be the nicest and strongest kitsune in the world!"

For a moment, he thought he felt a flash of heat behind his seal. He grinned.

This is totally going to work!

I always found it interesting that in all the fics and in canon, Naruto's panic about being the Kyuubi lasts a very short amount of time. As in, 5 seconds. Even if, in canon (if I know it right) he never gets a more detailed explanation. Iruka says Naruto isn't a monster, because he is a good boy. But since he IS a jinchuuriki, here Naruto understands the whole thing a little differently.