Naruto - Willpower of Fire

Notes:

-This is my first fanfic, so forgive me for all the beginning troubles. I'll try to avoid the common cliches but some of them are just unavoidable.

-This will be a smart Naruto fic but not a smartASS Naruto fic.

-It will eventually be Naruto/Female pairing, but not until later and I am currently undecided.

-Harems ruin Fanfics, so that will not be happening. Seriously I have read thousands of fanfics and have yet to come across a single good completed story with a harem.

-Money: 1 ryo = 10 yen (Jap) = 10 cents (USD)

-I'm playing it a bit fast and loose with the character ages, for now Naruto is much older than the other Konoha 11, in fact, he is 1.1 years older than Itachi. He is 7 years older than cannon age.

-His birthday and the Kyuubi attack is being moved to the Spring

Chapter 1

"Get out of here, Freak."

Naruto gazed at the librarian with a detached look on his face. This sort of behavior from the villagers was nothing new. For his entire seven year life he had known only apathy at best and outright scorn at worst from the villagers in Konoha.

Naruto sighed and placed the book down as he left to exit the library, knowing that there was no way he would convince the librarian to let him stay and read. For the last year, Naruto had taken to sneaking in to the library so he could read the academy books that were supposed to be issued to him. Surprise, surprise, the books he received were in horrible condition and contained information that he suspected was false.

As he walked down the street he ignored the glares of the people and said to himself, "Damn, not even 5 minutes this time". Indeed, yesterday night he was able to spend almost an hour hiding deep in the shelves.

Lately, Naruto has been trying to master his first jutsu, the henge. He knew that once he had mastered this jutsu, his stealth incursions into the library would be much more effective, at least on the civilian librarians. He was hoping to get more clarification on how the henge worked other than making the ram handseal, channeling chakra, and imagining what to look like.

"Oh well, just practice, practice, practice, I guess." Naruto said to himself.

-1-

"HENGE," Naruto shouted.

As he looked down into the pond's edge he saw himself staring back. Nothing had happened.

'Dammit, what the heck am I doing wrong,' Naruto thought frustratingly.

For the last few hours Naruto had been practicing in the forest outskirts of Konoha. As evidenced, the training had been less than fruitful, a lot less fruitful. As this was his first jutsu, it was not just a matter of figuring out the eccentricities of this jutsu, it was learning how to do jutsu period. He knew he had the the hand seal down perfectly, as he had badgered the old man Hokage to make sure all of his hand seals were as perfect as could be. He knew he could channel chakra, as evidenced by the blue hue that appeared when he really tried. By process of elimination that must leave the mental aspect.

He sat down on the grass as he pondered the mental side of his first jutsu. He didn't know quite what was supposed to be going on inside of his head. He had tried imagining everything from different hair colors to complete body changes, but none of them had worked.

"Okay, think!" 'It has to be about more than just imagination, there's something I'm missing or just overlooking. Okay, let's think about it like this...' he thought coming up with what he hoped was something new.

"I'm looking for a way to change my appearance... the hand seal and the chakra are the physical requirements and the imagination is the mental requirement... so, maybe I'm looking for a way to connect the physical and mental?' he theorized. "But what the hell could that be?"

"Aghh, I can't give up, I won't give up!" Naruto yelled determined. "Like the old man says, I just need the 'Will of Fire'."

He paused and thought about that for a minute. "Could it be that simple" he said to himself. Was willpower the only thing missing in the equation?

Willpower may be a simple concept, but put into practice it was anything but. At that point Naruto knew what he had to do. He had to decide what he wanted, what he needed. He knew that this was the first true step into the world of ninja. He needed the change, he need to hide himself, he needed to disappear if he had any chance at succeeding in this village.

He imagined his face, his hair, his body, what he had spent every day dreaming of what he could look like. Not hot or cute or even noticeable... no, he needed to be common, plain, forgettable. He needed it more than anything else. He subconsciously felt his hands form into the ram handseal, felt his chakra stir, and said with a calm voice, "Henge." He used the word as a trigger and forced his body to take the form willed it to.

He had no need to look at the water, he knew he had done it.

-1-

Naruto spent the next week refining his first jutsu and began to make a mental list of the things to do with his new found disguise. He knew that this was going to open new doors for him. First of all, he could finally be able to get a library card and check out books, he just had to be careful about only going there when there were civilians manning the desk. He was unsure of the skill level other ninja would have to be in order to detect him. Another thing he was looking forward to was buying any food for their real price. Although Naruto had truly loved ramen to begin with, eating it at every meal simply because it was cheap was getting annoying.

There was also one other item on the list that he was both looking forward to and fearing. Now that he had a way to disguise himself, perhaps he could come up with a way to find out why he was hated. Ever since he had observed other children, he knew that no one else was treated like he was. Every adult he had encountered so far had know the reason and not a single one would tell him. He had begged the Hokage and the Ichirakus over and over to tell him why, but they refused every time.

Naruto already had a rough idea of how to get some answers, find some drunk people, pretend he was a traveler, and buy one of them a drink in order to get some answers. He had encountered drunks from time to time and preferred to avoid them, but the closest that anyone had come to telling him why he was hated was when they were drunk. Unfortunately, they were always silenced either by friends and even once by an ANBU before they could reveal the reason.

Well, that was for later. For now, he decided to do some preparation. After living in Konoha as Uzumaki Naruto, he knew that he wanted life under henge to be as safe as possible. One of the things he had come up for now was to watch other academy students so that he could impersonate them without raising any suspicion. He knew that if word got out that Uzumaki Naruto was wandering around under a henge, things would get much more difficult. In fact, now that he thought about it, he would never let anyone know that he could do the henge, not even his teachers.

-1-

Tonight was the night. Tonight he was going to find out why he was hated. Naruto was very nervous as he ate his late dinner, rice and sauteed vegetables. As a result of free access to most of the library he had been able to research what sorts of food he should be eating for trying to be a ninja. While he knew he needed more protein, even more than that he needed the vitamins and minerals that fruits and vegetables provided. Thanks to the better prices he was able to get some sauces and spices in order to make them taste better, if only slightly. Naruto knew that a lot of kids would love to be in his situation, being able to eat whatever he wanted, but he also knew that he would have to be responsible for making a proper diet for himself.

He cleaned his dishes in the sink and locked up as he left his apartment. He had scouted the bars earlier in the week and had finally decided on a bar to try his plan on. He had decided to go to a more lower end civilian district as to avoid any ninjas that may silence any loose lips and to try and go around midnight, so the drinkers would be drunk enough. He had chosen today because he had observed a caravan of merchants entering the village earlier this morning.

As he neared the bar, he ducked into an alley to apply the henge. He tried to make the clothing as close to a lesser end traveling merchant as possible. After a deep breath, he opened the door of the bar and walked in.

The bar was roughly a third full and the mood seemed to be winding down. Naruto looked around for a man drinking alone, he spotted one sitting at the end of the bar, away from the bartender. He approached the man and sat next to him.

"Man, what a city you got here." Naruto said to the man.

"Huh?" the drunken man replied. "Whadaya mean..."

"This is my first time seeing a ninja village. Usually I just travel to poor little towns who seem scared stiff of bandit attacks. Here, nobody even has the slightest fear" Naruto had tried.

"Oh yeah, bandits piss themselves if they even dream of a ninja" the man said.

"But I'm curious about something. There was some kid being bullied by some adults. I felt so bad for him, but my boss told me not to interfere." Naruto decided to try.

"Huh, we don't hurt kids here. Are you sure it wasn't some ninja instructors training their students? Some of that stuff looks kinda bad sometimes."

"No, it was on the side of the street, although the kid was wearing an ugly orange jump suit and..."

"Ohh, Him... the monster..." the man murmured, "Yeah, ah... don't worry about him."

"Monster? What do you mean?" Naruto probed.

"Don't worry about it, just try to avoid that kid from now on."

"What do you want," a voice interrupted them said.

Naruto looked up and saw the bartender looking at him expecting a drink order.

Naruto quickly remembered where he was and replied "A bottle of Rice Country Sake please."

The bartender walked over a bit and pulled a bottle and a cup from underneath the bar. "250 ryo," he grunted.

Naruto internally winced as he handed over the money. Guess it would be back to instant ramen for a while. Naruto poured himself a drink as the bartender deposited the money. He then looked back at the man and decided to try a subtle bribe. "Care for a sip?"

"Who turns down free booze?" the man stated.

Naruto made sure to fill the mans cup as much as he could before raising his own and saying, "Kampai." The two men drank deeply, or at least one of them did and the other pretended to.

Naruto tried to make small talk for the next half hour, refilling their glasses with his wine every so often. Of course, most of it ended up in the other mans cup. After the man had become considerably more tipsy, Naruto decided to try again. "So by the way, why is that orange dressed kid a monster?"

"Huh, he just is, everybody knows that," he said, his words becoming increasingly slurred.

"Remember, I'm new in town." Naruto said gently. "C'mon, he seems harmless"

"Hah, some people may believe that but most of us know better. The Kyuubi is just faking it. Everyone knows it's just biding its time." The man started to rant, probably not realizing the word that had frozen Naruto suddenly.

The Kyuubi. The nine-tailed beast that had attacked Konoha... on the day of his birth. But how was he the Kyuubi? Naruto tried to get his head back together so he could get some more information, fortunately the small amount of sake in his system was keeping him from truly freaking out yet.

"What are you talking about? That monster was huge, I heard it was bigger than that mountain with the faces on it that I saw. How could that kid be anything related to that thing." Naruto tried.

"The yondaime, our hero sealed it into the kid. The monster then took over the kids body. The stupid sandaime tried to say that the kid is in control, but that's just stupid." the man blurted out.

"Sealed? How does that work?" Naruto managed to say, all the while trying to comprehend what he had just heard.

"I don't know, one of those ninja things." the man droned out.

At this point Naruto was reluctant to hear any more. He quietly excused himself and made for the door. As he walked back to his apartment he thought about his life and how what he heard could be the truth. Before he knew it he had returned to his home and felt clueless as to what to do. He had wanted answers since before he could remember, but he wasn't quite prepared for this.

-1-

Time skip – 1 month later

For the last month, Naruto had been coming to terms with having the Kyuubi sealed within him. He had continued going to the library and training his ninja skills. By now he had learned the kawarimi substitution jutsu and was making progress on the bunshin. He had theorized that since the Kyuubi was sealed within him, that is why he had such abundant chakra, meaning that control would be a life-long problem for him. He had researched chakra control techniques, but they were a problem of their own.

Unfortunately, the control techniques he had access to were for academy level students. Which meant that they were designed for people with both low control and low chakra reserves. For someone like him with obscenely high reserves and an inverse level of control, they would not work. Naruto suspected that it was unlikely that Konoha had any control techniques anywhere for him and that he would be forced to create his own for now. He knew that the purpose of chakra control training was to learn how use specific amounts at a time so that he could gauge how much was needed for later jutsu. Unfortunately, he had yet to find a useful way of getting an initial starting point for his chakra. Right now his chakra had two settings, on and off.

In between his training and studying, he had tried to remain on his best behavior around other people. After giving it some thought, he decided to try and show the people one on one that he was not the Kyuubi. To that end, he had tried a variety of ways to get peoples attention in a positive way. For a while he had tried doing chores for the elderly, but they took to his free labor in a suspicious way. He thought that he had been getting through to one old lady that he was just trying to help, and she seemed to appreciate his work. But after doing yard work for her for three weeks, he asked if he could use her bathroom. The look on her face told him her answer. When he stopped doing free yard work for her, she seemed to spread rumors about him and make it seem like he owed her more work. As if the privilege of working for her was more that the work itself was worth.

He tried helping other kids with their homework as well. Now that he was getting access to helpful information, his true intelligence was winning out. He quickly seemed to rise to the top of the class, or at least he would have if his instructors hadn't failed him for cheating. After all, according to them, it was the only way someone like him could pass. When he tried helping the other kids, they listened to their parent to avoid him and to the instructors that he was a cheat.

In the end, it seemed that there was no generation in Konoha that was willing to give him a fair shake. At this point, Naruto was running out positive energy in which to keep himself going. It was at this point that he decided to pay a visit to the old man, to see what wisdom he could give.

-1-

"Naruto, how are you doing? I hear that your academy studies are suffer even more than normal," the sandaime started.

"Actually, I've been doing better. Probably one of the best in my class. The stupid instructors just say I'm cheating, but can't figure out how." Naruto explained calmly.

"Now Naruto, why would they do that?" the sandaime replied in a placating manner.

"Maybe because they hate the Kyuubi." Naruto said, looking forward to seeing the old mans reaction. He wasn't disappointed.

The sandaime, who had been multitasking between talking to Naruto, doing his endless paperwork, and drinking his tea. At that particular moment, he was doing the latter. The sputtered his tea all over his completed paperwork, ruining the last hours work. The paperwork mattered little at this moment as the sandaime stared at Naruto with a shocked expression. "How... how..." the sandaime started, unable to complete his sentence.

"Did you really expect that an entire village would be able to keep the secret for my entire life?" Naruto said to the sandaime, with an evenness to he voice that even he couldn't believe he was able to produce.

"Naruto..." the sandaime began.

"Tell me the truth of what happened. It's more than likely that the version I know is tainted with hatred and lacking detail." Naruto said with the same even voice.

-1-

The sandaime sat and stared at Naruto. He knew this day would eventually come, but was unprepared for it to happen this soon. He thought of the lies he could tell, any way to make Naruto forget what he had already learned, but knew it was hopeless. Naruto was right. Only the truth could be told now. Anything else would only lead to misery. "Anbu, secure the room."

"The Kyuubi is one of the nine bijuu, the tailed beasts of legend. They are beings composed of youki, demon energy," the sandaime began. "Energy, regardless of the form, cannot be created or destroyed. Due to this, the bijuu are immortal. Anytime throughout history when a bijuu is defeated, they will eventually reform back into their previous forms. The only way to get any reprieve from them is to seal them. Some of the weaker bijuu, meaning the ones with fewer tails, can be sealed into inanimate object for a time, but will eventually escape. The stronger ones, meaning the ones with more tails would escape almost instantly. The only way to seal them for any real time is to seal them in humans," the sandaime said with disdain in his voice.

He kept his eyes on Naruto as he said this, but was only mildly surprised when Naruto neither said nothing nor reacted.

He continued on, "Unfortunately, you can't just place a bijuu in any human, it's youki is too corrosive for just anyone to handle. To handle a bijuu being placed in a human body, the body needs to be young. The child must also have a strong chakra capacity, so that their bodies can adapt to the corrosive nature of the energy. However that fact often creates problems of its own."

"What do you mean, problems?" Naruto finally said.

The sandaime turned his head to a map along the wall and stared. "The youki of the bijuu will always leak out of the seal, mingling with the containers own chakra. This make the container inherently more powerful. More importantly, these beings sometimes are able to find ways to channel the bijuus youki using their own bodies as a focus."

The sandaime looked at Naruto and saw him trying to come to terms with what he was saying. 'Naruto certainly isn't as stupid as the academy claims,' he thought. 'But he's not quite there yet.'

The sandaime decided to just come out and say it. "Other countries have sealed bijuus into children in hopes of creating human weapons to be used in war. These beings are called Jinchuuriki, meaning the power of sacrifice."

Naruto looked stricken as he said this. He looked to be fighting a terrible battle within his own mind as he contemplated what he had just said. "Is that why I was..." Naruto began.

"No!" the sandaime stated decisively. "Konoha is the only village that has not done this and it will remain that way as long as I can help it. The Kyuubi was sealed inside of you because there was no other way to stop it's rampage. If it hadn't been sealed, Konoha would have been completely destroyed." the sandaime continued.

"Then why do the people hate me so much?" Naruto pleaded with him.

"Because they are stupid, ignorant, and naive. They don't know any better. Fuinjutsu is one of the most complicated ninja branches, only the smartest and most advanced ninjas know more that the basics. They don't understand what happened to the Kyuubi other than it is now inside of you. No matter how much I tried to tell them, they couldn't understand. In the end, all I could do was wrap up all knowledge of this matter as an S-class secret. If anyone talks about this matter, they forfeit their lives. On that matter, who told you?" the sandaime asked, looking for an outlet to the emotions he was feeling.

"Some drunk." Naruto replied, "I told him I was new in town, bought him drinks, and kept pestering him about the kid in orange."

The sandaime stared at him as worked out how Naruto had learned the truth. "Wait, does this mean that you drank too?" the sandaime accused him.

"Well it helped numb the truth a bit." Naruto replied with a slight grin. "There's one more thing that I wanted to ask you about while you're in a truth telling mood however." Naruto said, his face once more becoming completely serious. "Who are my parents?"

The sandaime winced as he heard this and said "I told you before, they're dead." He watched as Naruto's face remained the same.

Naruto stilled for a moment before replying, "You know, back when I was living at the orphanage the others had a saying. 'If they tell you your parents are dead and give you their names, it means their dead and you're an orphan. If they tell you your parents are dead and don't give you their names, it means their alive and you're abandoned.'" Naruto said with a sad tone. "Now that I know why I'm hated by the villagers, can you really keep saying that my nameless parents are really dead?"

The sandaime was stricken by this. 'Is this what Naruto has believed ever since finding the truth? Does he believe that his parent's abandoned him the moment the Kyuubi was placed inside of him?' He didn't want to tell Naruto the truth this early, but it was the only way to stop this kind of thinking. 'It's the only way.'

"Your mother's name was Uzumaki Kushina, the previous container of the Kyuubi." the sandaime stated eventually. "When she was pregnant with you, the seal weakened and the Kyuubi escaped, killing her"

"I'm the reason..." Naruto began.

"No! Again, no, Naruto. We were prepared for the seal to be weakened and should have been able to deal with the strain on your mother, but something happened. I don't know all the details, but someone interfered and allowed the Kyuubi to break free. The only man who saw this person was the yondaime Hokage, your father."

"My father, the yondaime?" Naruto, completely shocked at this revelation. "Why would he... I mean if... why?"

Fortunately the sandaime got the gist of what he was saying, "Your father trusted a terrible burden to you. The kyuubi is the strongest bijuu and couldn't be sealed into just anyone. You are at least the third Uzumaki to hold the Kyuubi. Quite frankly, I don't know if many other lines would be strong enough to handle the strain of the strongest bijuu. The one true regret I have is that we couldn't keep the secret of the bijuus placement in you."

"What do you mean, I thought you declared it an S-class secret?" Naruto said confused.

"Your mother and her great aunt both held the Kyuubi since almost the founding of Konoha. When the kyuubi was first captured by the shodaime Hokage, he was able to seal it in secret. When I oversaw the transfer of the Kyuubi to your mother, again we were able to do it in secret. Both of them lived their lives with only a handful of people knowing the truth, and each one of them understood what it truly meant."

"Then why couldn't you keep it a secret for me?" Naruto said despairingly.

"In the aftermath of the Kyuubi's escape and sealing their were too many witnesses. Too many lives had been lost. The truth spread like wildfire and everyone looking for someone to blame for the losses found a target."

"Me." Naruto finally understood.

"Yes."

"But if my father was the Hokage, why would I be living in the orphanage?" Naruto asked. "Surely my parents had at least one friend who could have taken me in? And if I was the Hokage's son, surely that would have kept me from being hated at least a little."

"Your father had many enemies and was greatly feared. He had developed a jutsu that enabled him to wipe out entire armies single-handedly. If Iwa had found out that he had a son, they would have attacked us and as you recall, after the Kyuubi attack we were severely weakened. Even if they hadn't attack in mass, assassins from every country would have gone after you relentlessly."

The sandaime watched as Naruto stared at him, all his questions seemed to be answered.

"I need some time to think about this," he finally said and left.

-1-

"It seems Uzumaki Naruto is destined to be hated by his own people, and Namikaze Naruto is destined to have never existed." Naruto said to himself.

It had been a few weeks since his conversation with the sandaime and Naruto had been going through his life with a strange detachment. He observed the hatred in the eyes of the people as they looked at his true self, as opposed to the way they ignored his alter egos.

A few days ago he had come to the realization that he would likely never be accepted by these people as anything more than a scapegoat. He considered leaving, but knew the world outside probably wouldn't be any better, just more unfamiliar. Konoha, for all it's faults, truly tried to rise above the other villages in terms of morals. However with the time passed since the founding, the people had finally found their missing outlet for all their hatred and cruelty. The other villages had blamed bloodline ninja, different skin colors, even gender, to find reason to exercise their hatred. Konoha had made it almost a hundred years until he came along. Apparently, the temptation to hate was just too irresistible.

That was the problem however. He would always be the object of their hatred. He was now an institution for them. After realizing this about the people, he started to pity them. He knew that he should hate them, but just couldn't bring himself to act just like them. He wanted to change them back, back to the way they once were. Before they infected themselves with this hatred. If he wanted to change that, he needed to do something drastic. He couldn't change who he was inside, but he could change the less important outside.