Disclaimer: Naruto, Naruto Shippuden and everything related is the property of Masashi Kishimoto and unnamed, faceless corporate people. I own only a pair of pants.

"Don't you get it, Naruto? Don't you see the truth?"

"Stop it, Mizuki! It's forbidden!"

Umino Iruka was having a pretty shit day. And it all started earlier in the day...

-Same day, Shinobi academy-

"Well students, we have just finished the written portion of the graduation exam. Please procceed to the training field and prepare for throwing practice and sparring."

The murmur of the mass of students talking animatedly while leaving the room filled the back of his mind as he started giving each of the sheets of paper in his hands a cursory view, trying to estimate how well his students did. Iruka was absentmindedly leafing through tests before reaching that of one Uzumaki Naruto.

Ah, Uzumaki Naruto. The village's number one pranking, troublemaking aspiring ninja. Iruka was very close to the boy, being one of the few people that didn't either ignore him, or outright hate him, but no matter how much he loved Naruto like a little brother, he had to admit that the boy was somewhat dim in the theoretical aspects of life.

Which is why he almost choked when Naruto's answers in the test were something you'd see a retired shinobi with years of experience putting down.

'Which are the different disciplines used by shinobi in order to prevail in battle and complete their assignments?'

'The main disciplines used by shinobi in order to triumph are stealth, awareness, tactical prowess, negotiation, cunning, trickery and misdirection. When the indirect methods fail, then shinobi have to turn to and rely on the other parts of a functional skillset, nin-, gen- and taijutsu, as well as shurikenjutsu, trapping skills, poisons, and in some cases, kenjutsu. The best shinobi have the ability to properly discern the different skills to use in different situations, but the number one most important skill for a shinobi is the ability to surprise their enemy.'

"Holy sh-..."

Iruka wanted to keep reading on, but he had to stop himself when Mizuki called out to him to start the practical portion of the exam.

Once outside, at the target range, Iruka had the students lining up to take their turns with the training targets. They were human-shaped strawmen with two bullseyes, one for the head and one of the torso, with different points given by how close to the center they were hit. They both were divided into five parts, the center white with four alternating rings of red and white. On the torso, the grades went from 1 to the outermost ring, to a 5 in the bullseye, and the head started with a 2 on the outter ring, increasing each time by 2 until the center target gave a ten. Each student had 10 throws, and they could throw at whichever target they wanted. The objective of the exercise was to have the students score at least an 11/20, with each of them having 10 tries or until they scored 20.

Most of the students averaged at about 12, picking and choosing at different rings to sum up points, with the clan heirs scoring around the 16's. Sasuke, as expected, secured the highest grade, managing a 20 in 4 throws. As the boy's fangirls (Iruka very much felt for the boy's sad future in regards to that, fangirls were creepy and the nightmare of any successful shinobi) squealed in delight at the perfect performance of their Sasuke-kun, Iruka called up the last one in the list, Naruto.

How the boy with the surname Uzumaki get lower in the list than Zantonio Zalga, Iruka would never know.

The majority of the students lost their focus at that point, seeing that 'everyone that mattered' had already thrown. Only Iruka, Mizuki and 3 other students had their attention still on him.

Sasuke was watching out the corner of his eye, but he wouldn't own up to that even under torture.

So when Naruto got a 20 in two throws by hitting the two kunai that he threw simultaneously on the head's bullseye, Iruka looked up to see if the sky was falling.

'Naruto always used to be bad at projectiles, no matter how much I tried to drill proper technique into his head! What the hell is going on, today?'

Naruto turned to Iruka, giving him a sheepish smile and rubbing the back of his head as he spoke "Well, that was lucky!".

Iruka just nodded silently, before gathering Mizuki and wrangling the unnatentive children who missed the previous events and placing them around the sparring platform.

A certain Uchiha Sasuke was grinding his teeth in the background.

One by one, the students went into the ring and sparred with Mizuki for a few minutes, getting a grade out of 10 from Iruka based on their performance. Once again, after Zantonio Zalga, Uzumaki Naruto was called up to the circular ring.

As soon as Iruka gave the starting sign, Mizuki dashed at Naruto with high-gennin speeds, catching the blond by surprise.

Naruto was so surprised in fact, that he fell backwards onto his ass, his right foot shooting up reflexively and nailing Mizuki in the family Jewels.

Iruka and every other male in the vicinity cringed in sympathy. A nutcracker, no matter how accidental, at that speed, was bound to hurt.

Naruto seemed to finally regain his bearing, jumping to his feet before looking down at the foetal-positioned form of Mizuki.

"Hey, are you okay, Mizuki-Sensei?... Wait, I was the only one to actually down him, does this mean I get the best grade?"

Naruto's excited, gleaming look at getting the only 10/10 in the sparring practical other than Sasuke's followed him back into the Ninjutsu examination room, making him unaware of the dirty looks Mizuki shot him.

"Okay Naruto" Iruka started "Now all that's left is the Ninjutsu portion of the exam. You need to successfully perform a Kawarimi, a Henge, and three proper bunshin. you may procceed."

Naruto thought for a while, focusing on what he'd do before his eyes flashed in realization and mischief, automatically putting Iruka and Mizuki on guard.

"Oiroke no Jutsu!"

In a puff of smoke, a blonde, pigtailed gir with tanned skin, perfect curves and plentiful assest covered only, like her lower bits, by a cloud of smoke, blew Iruka a kiss.

-Hokage tower, same time-

"Plllllllbbbhttttt!"

The third Hokage's nosebleed at the scene he watched in his crystal ball threw him straight at the wall of his office, knocking him unconscious.

-Back in the classroom-

Iruka and Mizuki were stunned, but before either could say a thing, the door was broken down by a horde of girls, lead by Sakura.

"Naruto-baka! WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING!?"

Iruka started sweating, he knew that feeling. That concentration of malice coming from the group was only found in kunoichi experiencing the 'Righteous Anger' state from being in the presence of, or sensing, a perverted action.

Naruto sensuously moaned "Sakura-chan~", before blowing her a kiss, getting a partial nosebleed from the girl, which in turn turned up the righteous anger to 11. Looking down morosely, Iruka just hoped Naruto would recover from the beating of a lifetime.

The girls jumped the figure, punching, kicking, scratching, biting, and stomping away.

"That's no good."

Iruka jumped as he heard Naruto's voice from where Mizuki previously stood behind him, completely unhurt.

"Naruto! But if you're here, then who..."

Iruka's gaze turned back to the scene of the carnage, the beaten form of Mizuki laying on the ground, barely twitching. The girls left the classroom, the expenditure of the righteous anger meaning they didn't even care about target anymore.

Iruka's face slowly turned to Naruto, utterly scared at the true face of the innocent boy.

"You... You taunted them on purpose after they first came in... And you Kawarimi'd with Mizuki to get the 'Pervet beating no jutsu' diverted from you!"

Naruto chuckled with the best 'oops' face he had "Well... I actually didn't try to taunt them, I was just acting out the role, you know. And the Kawarimi..." He said with a massive shiver "The back of my neck tingled, and I just knew that if I didn't pull it off, I'd be in pain. Thank god I did."

Iruka nodded appreciatively. Naruto's instincts were top-notch in the situation. Ignoring the twitching Mizuki who was taken away in a stretcher to the nurse's office, Iruka cleared his throat to get things back on track.

"Well Naruto, now you just need to perform three successful bunshin."

Naruto nodded before clasping his hands into a Ram sign, his chakra pooling around him before he called out "Bunshin no Jutsu!", causing 20 illusory Narutos to fill the room.

Iruka smiled brightly, and proudly, at the grinning Naruto "Well Naruto, you just earned yourself your headband! You are now officially a shinobi!"

Naruto took the blue cloth headband with a beaming smile, tightly tying it around his forehead. He gave Iruka one of his foxy grins as he spoke "It's all thanks to you teaching me, Iruka-sensei! I'll never forget it!"

Naruto scampered off, leaving behind an honestly cheerful Iruka.

-Later, end of schoolday, Academy Park-

Naruto sat contentedly under a tree, enjoying the shade and the breeze as a shinobi for the first time in his life. The silence was broken by the voice of Mizuki.

"Hey Naruto, Iruka told me that you passed, congratulations!"

Naruto beamed up at Mizuki, proudly tightening the headband around his forehead as he spoke "I did, yeah! I'm now a totally awesome shinobi!"

"Well Naruto" Mizuki said before looked around conspiratorially "There's actually another secret test for the really talented, which could promote you directly to Chunnin."

"Really!" Naruto shouted loudly, only to rub the back of his head sheepishly as Mizuki shushed him "What do I have to do, Mizuki-sensei?"

"Naruto, you have to get into the Hokage tower, undetected, get the scroll of sealing, learn a technique off of the scroll to show your potential, and meet up with me back at the forest so I can evaluate your progress."

Naruto nodded before trooping off, leaving behind a smirking Mizuki 'Soon, demon. Soon.'

After that, things went about as well (or as badly) as expected. Naruto broke into the tower and stole the scroll, beating the hokage in the process with his 'Oiroke no Jutsu', before scampering off to the forest and opening the scroll, reading it and trying to get as many jutsu as possible. Maybe they'd promote him directly to Jounin then!

Iruka catching up to Naruto before Mizuki and then having Naruto spill the beans wasn't part of Mizuki's plan, nor was it impaling Iruka's limbs with Kunai, but hey, you have to improvise. Which lead to the current situation.

Iruka unable to move, Naruto frozen with the scroll on his hands as Mizuki talked about the village's S-rank secret.

-Back to the beggining-

"W-what truth? What are you talking about, Mizuki-sensei?"

"Thirteen years ago, the village was attacked by the Kyuubi no Youko, and the fourth died to defeat it, but demons can't be killed, so his sacrifice instead made the fox reincarnate into you! That's right, you are the fox!"

Iruka looked at Naruto, watching the desperate and disbelieving look on his face, but before he could say a word, Naruto's face changed into a deadpan.

"That's it? I'm the fox? Mizuki, you had an entire day to figure out a proper lie to tell me, and you bullshit me with this?"

Mizuki's jaw dropped about as low as Iruka's, and they kept going lower as naruto kept speaking.

"I'm a Jinchuuriki, a host, not the fox you damn moron." before a massive grin broke out on his face, promising Mizuki untold amounts of pain "Well, Moron-zuki, I've been wanting to kick your ass for a long time, for trying to sabotage my education, and while the kick to the nards during sparring practice, and the fangirl beating were cathartic, the fact that you just revealed an S-rank state secret means that I have free reign on where to place you in the 'pain' scale."

Mizuki scoffed "You expect to beat me? You're just a snot-nosed brat out of the acade-"

"DYNAMIC ENTRY!"

Mizuki found his speech interrupted when Naruto suddenly appeared in front of him in a jumpkick which hit his chest, hurting a lot and throwing him backwards limply from the shock.

- Elsewhere -

Miles away from the forest, a certain bowl-cut spandex-wearing man started streaming tears in his sleep, his cries of "YOUUUUUUUUUUUUTH!" disturbing his neighbours all around.

- At the forest -

Mizuki's backwards flight trajectory was forcibly changed when Naruto appeared behind him, snapping a kick at his back which threw the chunnin upwards. He was met up with by another Naruto who took hold of the back of his neck with both hands, positioning the front on his shoulder before gravity pulled them downwards.

On the sidelines, a few other Naruto's sat behind a log acting as a table as they commentated.

"What's this!? Coming out of nowhere, Uzumaki Naruto... Watch out, watch out, watch out!..."

When Naruto landed on a treebranch, causing Mizuki's face to crash into, and his neck to almost break on his shoulder, one of the commentating Naruto's cried in excitement.

"NKO! NKO! NKO Out of nowhere!"

The Naruto who slammed Mizuki onto the massive branch stood up, flipping Mizuki over onto his back before a a whistling sound came from above. Suddenly, Naruto was falling...

"PEOPLE'S ELBOW!"

And slamming his elbow into Mizuki's gut.

Iruka winced. If Mizuki wasn't already suffering from internal damage from the first two kicks, then now he'd be shitting blood for weeks.

'Oh wait, Mizuki is a traitor.'

Iruka decided to spare no sympathy for the traitorous chunnin, 'Moron-zuki' as Naruto declared.

Mizuki was previously doing his best to stay conscious, but the combined might of the 'NKO' and the 'People's elbow' turned his goal into a pipe dream, crushed about as badly as his spleen. And one of his kidneys. And maybe even his liver.

- 15 minutes later, Hokage's tower -

"So, let me get this straight" started Hiruzen Sarutobi, the third Hokage of Konoha while pinching the bridge of his nose, just thinking about the amount of paperwork this would cause "You set yourself up as bait to draw a traitorous chunnin to the spotlight, then you proceeded to nearly liquidate said chunnin."

Naruto nodded sagely as he spoke "Yes, that's the gist of it."

Koharu, Homura and Danzo, the Village's elders, reacted to Naruto's words in different ways.

Koharu was veritably seething at the 'whelp's gall' in the way he adressed the Hokage.

Homura was amused at the boy's nonchallance in the situation.

Danzo was dreaming about Jinchuuriki-shaped weapons willing to use themselves as bait for the good of the village. 'Holds potential. Maybe I can convince him to join Root'

Hiruzen sighed before speaking "I hardly think this explains everything, Naruto. Please, start over."

"Well, Mizuki was a dick. Like, a massive one. He always sabotaged my grades when I first started in the academy. Homework assignments were always missing or misplaced after he payed the specific teacher a personal visit, the practice Kunai and shuriken he gave me were always the worst, he pulled me aside with 'super special taijutsu moves' trying to screw up my taijutsu, and he never managed to hide that gleam in his eye whenever bad things happened to me, so I decided that I was going to prank his pants off."

Hiruzen felt his anger and tiredness hit him the more Naruto spoke, seeing how far the hatred for the innocent young child could be taken by someone supposed to nurture and educate. Seemingly ignorant to this, Naruto continued.

"So, I decided that the best way to prank him into the psychiatric ward was to watch him. Learn where he lived, his habits, his schedule, so I started following him around whenever I could."

Koharu interrupted at that moment in a derisive tone "You're saying that you've been following around a chunnin without being detected, ever since you were a child. A hyperaware, traitorous chunnin at that. You?"

Naruto deadpanned as he answered "Yes, me, the kid who snuck into and out of the ANBU headquartes and the clan grounds in order to prank people, the kid who painted the hokage monument in broad daylight, the kid who constantly manages to escape and hide from Chunnin, Jounin and ANBU in a bright orange jumpsuit in broad daylight. Yes, me."

Homura stifled a laugh at the response, while Sarutobi smiled lightly, his eyes shining with mirth at Koharu's disgruntled look "Point. Keep on with your tale please, Naruto."

Naruto looked at Hiruzen thankfully before returning to his tale "Well, I've learned his habits, schedule and tells and everything screamed traitor. Of course, seen as I'm me I couldn't just bring this suspicion to the fore as I'd be easily disimssed, and then he'd just disappear with village secrets and hurt us more, so I went along with it and decided to wait for a chance to have the man reveal himself."

"How'd you even know to do all of this?" Asked an incredulous Iruka. At that question, everybody else leaned in expecting an answer.

"Well, I've been strolling into the ANBU complex almost weekly to prank them, you don't think I'd learn a thing or two from there? I mean seriously, Field-op manuals and such just strewn around the common room tables, some of your ANBU are just right slobs!"

The four ANBU at the corners of the room sweatdropped at that, as did everyone else.

"Anyways, back to the story. I waited for an occasion, an opportunity to flush the rat, and he himself provided me one with that test bullshit. As if a chunnin could promote a freshly-graduated gennin to the same rank as himself. Moron-zuki underestimated my intelligence almost as badly as those three." He said pointing at the elders, getting surprised looks from two, and a slight narrowing of the eyes of the third "I mean seriously, so many people with no reason to hate me, who treated me neutrally, suddenly turn cold and spiteful. Almost feels like someone trying to soften me up, make me emotionally deficient so I could easily be programmed. As if someone wanted to lay some foundations on me."

The emphasis that he gave to the word caused Koharu and Homura's backs to stiffen, Danzo to focus his one good eye on the boy, and Hizuren to look at the three of them thunderously, the sheer rage and killing intent he released reminding everyone in the room why the man was called the god of shinobi.

Before he could act, however, Naruto continued on "Well, so I decided to use the scroll as bait, leave breadcrumbs for Iruka-sensei to witness everything, and make sure Mizuki spilled the beans in the presence of Iruka so he could be formally charged without the civillian council interfering because of the untrustworthiness of the 'Kyuubi-brat' " he said nonchalantly with air quotation marks, leaving everybody gaping.

After a few minutes of sputtering, Hiruzen recovered enough to speak again "You Knew?"

Naruto raised an eyebrow at the old man "The main insult most people threw at me was demon to the face, and Kyuubi-brat when they thought they were outside of the children's earshot. Plus, I kind of have a massive sealing array on my stomach which holds back a giant fucking fox. Do you think I'd be stupid enough to not notice I have a giant fucking fox residing in my stomach?"

"Why did you never tell me anything, Naruto? Don't you trust me?" Sarutobi asked in a disappointed tone.

Naruto turned a blank stare on the man before saying "Same question to you, Hokage-sama." Hiruzen cringed at the tone and manner of address "When was I going to learn about the giant fox residing in my gut which made people detest me? When were you going to tell me the reason for their hatred, instead of simply deflecting questions or changing the subject?"

"You weren't ready, Naruto!"

"I wasn't ready for a secret about my own life which will forever stick with me, but I'm ready to join the academy that teaches me the many various ways of murdering people?" he deadpanned. "I mean sure, tell me the best ways to cause pain without killing for information extraction, teach me techniques to destroy whole batallions and villages, but leave me in the dark about something that will forever live inside my gut."

Hiruzen looked older and older as Naruto spoke, before he suddenly changed the subject.

"By the way, I'd like it if this was registered as a completed mission in my files. At least A-rank since I had to keep village secrets from the hands of a traitor, endangered my life as bait and had to fight a chunnin..."

Before he could say anymore, an Anbu blurred into the room, kneeling in front of the hokage before speaking "Hokage-sama, Ibiki told me to inform you with urgency of the fact that Mizuki was a spy for Orochimaru, and that there are others living as civillian and shinobi alike". And just like that, the Anbu disappeared again.

"S-rank!" Everybody turned towards Naruto "What? I kicked a chunnin's ass, protected village secrets and exposed a whole net of espionage related to the traitorous Sannin. It's totally an S-rank."

Hiruzen nodded in agreement, wanting nothing more than to just go to bed as his headaches grew further "Well, Naruto. Your file will be marked with a classified completed S-rank mission, and the payment shall be given to you tomorrow. You may leave."

Naruto nodded to the Hokage before surprising everyone in the room by disappearing in a sunshin.

'How much more are you hiding, Uzumaki?' thought Danzo as he walked away from the Hokage's office, flanked by Koharu and Homura.

Chapter one, done!