Demon Kid Chapter 1: You are boring!, a naruto fanfic

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, etc. etc. etc..

A/N: Rated M so I can then not bother thinking about ratings at a later time. The story is very OOC, for Naruto himself, and somewhat AU. Naruto leaves Konoha at the age of six, but returns in a year, suddenly, on the night of the Uchiha massacre. A very strong Naruto, with completely different ambitions and personality to canon.

This is the first time that I have attempted a significant piece of creative writing, so please bear with any quirks, and point them out if important.

This fic uses the timeline found here:

http://forums(dot)narutofan(dot)com/showthread(dot)php?t(equals)12409

"Boo" speech

'Boo' thought

"Boo" Bijuu speech

'Boo' Bijuu thought

"Demon-Kid":

May 26th, Naruto at age 6:

An ANBU Captain, codenamed Hanone, sat on the roof opposite the window of the apartment of a young, sleeping, blond boy. The only things visible in the darkness were his dog mask and his little orange book, held close to his body and under his head to shelter it from the rain, being read in silence. Icha Icha Paradise volume 1 was a glorious publication to be sure, but to giggle would be unbefitting an ANBU Captain, so the silence was once in a rare while punctuated by small coughing fits from the Captain, expertly suppressed by one with experience.

With a quick motion, the little book was closed and deposited beneath his cloak, safe, and he made a cursory inspection of his surroundings. He should not have bothered, it was nigh impossible to see more than a few metres distance in this deluge. Patiently, he waited for one of his subordinates to relieve his 6 hour watch. With a burst of static a woman's voice came through his earpiece:

"Sir, this is Tsuka. I should be at your position within 5, over."

The Captain pressed a button on the band around his neck and spoke:

"Very well. Target is still asleep, over."

"Understood. Out."

The 20-year-old sighed. May was always the most boring time of year, when watching over Naruto was concerned. The previous October 10th was but a distant memory, and preparation for the next had yet to be even discussed. As a result, the boy's security was a little more laid back at this time of year, but that could not be helped.

He mused on his charge, how the kid would inquisitively try seemingly anything during his waking moments, drawing the inevitable ire of the villagers who do not wish him to exist, let alone have him ask them questions about their lives, their jobs or their physical features. A few months back there had been a particularly delicate situation with an obese villager and his family, a family that had suffered many losses to the Kyuubi, after Naruto had seen the villager in the street and had asked, quite innocently, whether he worked in the circus as a clown due to his weight.

These incidents had been decreasing, however, as the boy seemed to be spending more and more time inside his flat rather than venturing outside, and had increasingly been becoming a bright, curious but incredibly jumpy child, despite having been out of the orphanage for barely a year. "Chucked out…" he corrected himself in a whisper. Of all the insults to his sensei…

He heard soft footsteps behind him, and the sound of the door to the roof opening, and turned to see his subordinate pass through the doorway. She walked up to him to inform him that the tea was ready, and went on watch.

Hanone opened the door and went down the stairs within, finally arriving at what had until a few months ago been the caretaker's storage room. "Nice little hovel we have here, now that you got the kettle, Tenzou," he said as he sat down to a medium sized table, took his outer mask off, then sipped his tea through his normal mask.

"Hai, Kakashi-taicho. You are supposed to have reimbursed me for it by now, though," said the mokuton user, sat on the couch watching TV with another black clad ninja.

"Oh, yes. I would have done it sooner, but a boy had lost his cat and he asked me to find it so--"

"Yes, yes, I get it!"

Kakashi smiled, as indicated by his crescent shaped eye, and resumed reading his much sought after copy of Icha Icha Paradise, Volume 1 while sipping tea through his mask.

"Nee, Kakashi-taicho… do you have many facemasks, or do you wash the gunk out of it everyday?" spoke a high pitched voice.

Kakashi looked up at the room's other occupant, a recent recruit into his squad, the Uchiha Clan's very own pet genius, Itachi.

"No, no, I have several. I even have some for special occasions. Do you want the name of my tailor, Ita-chan?"

A few hours later, the peace was shattered by the sound of a large blast coming from nearby to the south. The three of them in the room stood up and quickly put their masks and cloaks on and rushed outside as their earpieces became saturated with babble from HQ.

"Tsuka, you stay here, the rest of us will go."

With a nod of the head Hanone and the other two rushed a few blocks to the south to ascertain what was going on.

As this was happening, a nearby group of three men broke up into an individual and a pair. The individual jumped up to the roof where Tsuka was standing, throwing shuriken as he landed. His two colleagues ran into the apartment building Naruto lived in.

Tsuka ducked to the left from the shuriken, taking her farther away from Naruto than would be considered acceptable. From the way the shuriken were thrown she determined that the man was at least low ANBU/mid Chunin level in skill, assuming his abilities were typical. As she thought this she saw the streetlights pick up an odd redness in the eye of her adversary, which revealed it to be a three tomoed sharingan.

'Oh shit…'

Two men were now walking quietly along the balcony towards a flat's door. When they reached it, the somewhat shorter one kicked it down and they rushed in through to the bedroom, where a tired and frightened child was now sitting up in bed. There was a pause, until the men started pacing across the small room towards the bed, with the child backing up towards the corner.

"Finally a chance to avenge our mother, six years too late," intoned the taller man as he stopped, his knees touching the edge of the head nearest Naruto. In the light from the streetlights through the window, the grin on his face made him resemble a demon spawned the Fire Country's own volcanoes. Suddenly he grabbed Naruto's right ankle and dragged him to the carpeted floor and the two men started kicking the boy as he curled up to protect himself. The high pitched squeals did nothing to discourage the men as the beating continued and lacerations started to appear all over Naruto's body. After some twenty seconds of this his bottom rib broke off near the spine and punctured his lung, which filled with blood. As he drowned his feeling decreased and the sounds seemed to grow quiet, until he finally lost consciousness.

The men paused as they saw the wretch at their feet still itself and stop screaming. "Is it dead?" asked the shorter man.

"Probably," said the taller one as he leant down to take the boy's pulse, 'if demons have pulses that is,' he thought.

As his hand reached the boy's neck a strange red chakra started flaming out. He straightened quickly and kicked towards the boy's shoulder. Just as his foot was about to contact the kid, a bone spike suddenly shot out of the kid's shoulder and went straight through his foot before receding. He screamed in agony as the little red demon stood up, its whisker marks now great triangular clefts in his cheeks and his eyes became slit. The standing and the hopping man took out kunai and charged at the little monster before them that then jumped at them with bone blades emerging from its palms while in flight, decapitating the taller man. The shorter man stood in shock as he saw his younger brother's body slump and his head drop towards the floor. This hesitation proved costly as the other bone blade was slipped through the back of his ribs and into his heart, killing him almost instantly.

The blood-soaked demon now stopped and started to cough out vast amounts of blood that had gathered in the brat's lungs. Finished, Kyuubi, the Nine-Tails, grinned to itself… 'Time for the brat to wake up…'

The boy's body slumped, still surrounded by the red chakra. Opening his eyes Naruto pushed himself up off the floor and saw his formerly white blood red carpet, wondering why he was still alive. He turned his head, ignoring, or unaware of, the fact that he was surrounded by a red haze, and saw the bloody corpses of his former tormentors. His breath stopped and his eyes widened. After about a second he screamed and ran off, on all fours, through his broken door and down the balcony and through the streets towards the edge of town.

Outside, Tsuka and her Uchiha adversary were trading fire jutsu when they felt the presence of a sinister chakra they had not experienced for six years. Tsuka turned towards the flat but was prevented from going to it by a kunai that passed before her face, forcing her to turn back to her opponent. Unfortunately for her, this caused her to be caught in his eyes.

Around her she saw giant worms burrowing their way out of the roof of the building and launching themselves at her. She tried to cancel the genjutsu, but found that it was at too high a level for her, causing her to have to dodge the worms instead.

Hanone, Karasu and Fukurou were leaping back towards their base, leaving other ANBU squads to deal with the situation they were leaving behind, to investigate the surge of eerily familiar charka, to all but their youngest member. As their base became visible through the rain, they could see Tsuka dodging seemingly invisible attackers, before they saw a man jump behind her and knock her out. They quickened their pace and, before the man had moved another centimetre, surrounded him. The man looked around at the three masks around him, and then relaxed, deactivating his sharingan in acknowledgement of his inferior position.

Hanone read the signs that were being given to him by Karasu, Itachi, and said: "Uchiha Kouta, you will be coming with us. Karasu, you look after her," nodding towards Tsuka. Just after he said this, another ANBU team landed on the roof, and he turned to them. "This is Uchiha Kouta. He is under arrest. Escort him to the cells under the Hokage tower for now."

The captain of the other team nodded, and he and his men took Kouta away.

"Come, Fukurou, we must check up on our charge."

They walked towards the other side of the roof, and the sight they saw made them stop. The first thing they noticed through the window was the blood, then the two bodies on the carpet, and then the messed up bed. They ran around to the other side to the broken door, seeing only bloody foot and hand prints that then faded out, as if the blood was boiled off the body.

"Kuchiyose no jutsu!" Hanone put his hand on the balcony floor as some seals flowed out from it, before, with a puff of smoke, several dogs appeared, with a small one sitting on the head of a very large one saying, "Yo."

"Pakkun, I need you to find the Jinchuuriki. Now."

"Hai." With that, the nin-ken scattered.

May 27th:

It was early morning in the Hokage's office as Sarutobi poured himself a large helping of sake. The door to the left of the room opened and a dog masked ANBU came through and stood before his desk, the door swinging shut behind him.

"Sit down, Kakashi-kun."

The ANBU looked to his left and pulled out a chair to sit on, sat, and removed his ANBU mask, looking at his Kage.

"What happened?" asked Sarutobi in a weary voice.

"From what we know now, Uchiha Kouta, a middle-ranking member of his clan, conspired with five other clan members, two genin and three chunin, to assassinate Uzumaki Naruto. They blew up an abandoned children's home with the three chunin laying in wait to keep us there once we arrived. They are being detained. While this was happening Kouta himself kept Tsuka away from Naruto, so that the two genin could kill him. However, it would seem that the Kyubi somehow awakened before Naruto could be killed (it appears though that this was after he was already almost dead, as we found some of his blood on the floor) and killed the two genin. It is unknown how he killed them, as Naruto was almost certainly unarmed, but the wounds were similar to those you would expect from a blade the length of Naruto's forearm.

"We found bloody tracks, Naruto's, coming out of his department, but they faded for a reason we do not know. I sent my nin-ken after him, but Pakkun says that the trail became lost due to the Kyubi's chakra filling a large area of the forest hiding Naruto's position by interfering with the dogs' sense of smell, and then vanishing after a time, with no trace to be found of a trail. In short, we have lost Naruto. He is nowhere to be found."

Sarutobi put his head in his hands and said, "And this is what I am supposed to tell the council?"

"They are just outside, Hokage-sama."

"Show them in, then, Hanone."

Putting on his ANBU mask he said, "Hai, Hokage-sama," and opened the door, allowing the councillors and clan heads to enter.

They filled the office, jostling each other, trying to be near the front of the crowd.

"So, what is this about?"

"There was an explosion last night Hokage-sama. We would like an explanation," came the voice of Aburame Shibi.

"The explosion acted as a diversion for an assassination attempt on Uzumaki Naruto."

There was silence, full of the unasked question: 'So is he dead?'

"It is thought that the child survived the attempt on his life. However, he is nowhere to be found," at this Sarutobi glanced at Hanone, "but searches are ongoing."

After a few moments, Yamanaka Inoichi spoke, "Does that mean, then, that your law does not apply anymore? That we can tell our children the truth?"

Sarutobi looked straight at the mind-reading ninja for at least two minutes. Eventually, he spoke, "If he is not found after 3 months, then the law will be repealed."

June 28th, a year later. Naruto aged 7:

As the rain poured down on the road, though at a near horizontal angle, a small figure, clothed in rags, battled to walk through the mud. It was barefoot, either not having had shoes to begin with, or having just recently lost them in the mud. Abruptly, a gust of wind came from a different direction, making the figure fall onto its back in the mud. It struggled to get itself up, and as it succeeded, its hood was pulled down, due to sticking to the mud, revealing a shock of blond hair at near shoulder-length. Looking into the sky at the black clouds, with his whisker marks on the right hand side of his face pummelled by the sleet, Naruto grimaced as it was clear that it would take him a while to leave this squall.

He pulled his sodden hood back up and faced a little away from the wind to protect his eyes, so facing northwest, with the road heading north, and the wind coming from the east. He turned his eyes to right to see down the road. It carried on across the plain for a few hundred metres, before the forest would give him some reprieve. He could see little further, as there was then a turn in the road.

As he trudged on, his mind went back to thinking about why he was going back to that hellhole after so much time. 'I need to get strong enough that it will never happen again, and this is the only possible place.'

As he went on, he started to regret starting this last leg so late in the day rather than finding a resting place at the last town. No alternative now, though, since he should be over half of the way there by now, or so he hoped.

Some hours later, Uchiha Sasuke made his way out of the Konoha Academy and ran back to the Uchiha compound. Once inside, he noticed the lack of lights at a time when he would expect many. He ran towards his house.

Some time later, Uchiha Itachi, genius and now slaughterer of the Uchiha Clan, dropped down to the outside of the village's walls, and started jumping from tree to tree, to get away from the place before they started searching for him. Only some seconds into this journey, he was intrigued by the appearance of a vaguely familiar presence that he could not quite place. It seemed to be on the road. Weighing the risks, he decided that it was probably safe enough to investigate.

Reaching the road, he saw a small child, not yet 8 years of age, struggling through the mud and shivering, his clothes soaked. He landed in front of the boy, who stepped back in a wary stance, and looked at his muddy face. For a moment he was shocked. Then he said, "You are that demon-kid aren't you?"

A stunned Naruto, noticing his Konoha hitai-ate, nodded in response. Itachi smirked. 'What an irony that the Kyubi should arrive just after I have slaughtered my clan, a mere year after some of my clansmen attempted to kill it…'

He leaped to the air and continued his flight from Konoha, leaving Naruto standing there, watching him with a confused expression on his face. After a minute or so, Naruto continued walking down the road, happy now be protected from the biting wind. A few minutes later though, he caught his foot on something, and fell flat on his face, covering it completely with mud. Getting back up, he inspected his foot. He was quite badly grazed on the top of it, but was too tired to cry out. Despite the mud, he could see it slowly healing before his eyes. After taking a quick look around, he pumped some of the fox's chakra to the foot, and then carried on walking.

"Too much of a wuss to bear the pain then?"

'Shut up.'

"My my, you are a mouthy little brat."

'Just leave me alone.'

"Hahaha… All this effort just to go back to that place. It is definitely more fun than I expected, to be trapped inside of a masochist."

'Just. Shut. Up!'

"Hahaha…"

Scowling, he made his way through the muck for a few more minutes, and then turned the corner, and then stopped. In the distance before him, to the east, he could see the entrance to Konoha. He then started walking towards it. 'This is it. I will go there, they will hopefully accept me back. I will feign ignorance about the fox, and then I will say that I want to go to the academy.'

On top of the western gates of Konoha, a tortoise masked ANBU was standing. Captain Midoriiro was looking curiously at the diminuitive person in the distance. He reached into his cloak and took out a small, standard issue, set of binoculars, and looked through them towards the diminuitive person. He, or she, was mud covered and wet, and looked very tired, and in some trouble. Almost certainly a lost child.

He turned to his subordinate. "I am going to inspect that youthful individual coming our way." With that, he jumped into the forest canopy and travelled towards the child. After some seconds, he landed in front of Naruto, who was wondering whether this was some habit peculiar to Konoha ninja or standard practice everywhere. Naruto said, "Good evening, ANBU-sama," juddering the last two syllables as his jaw shivered.

Beneath his mask, Midoriiro's brow furrowed. This kid was in trouble. Well, who better than his youthful self to save him! "Good evening, kiddo! Once I have your identity, I will take you into Konohagakure!" He knelt down, oblivious to the mud, and made to rub the mud off Naruto's face. "So, what is your name, kiddo?" he said as he started to rub the filth off the boy's cheek. He then felt some odd lines on the boy's cheeks, and took his hands away in order to see them. As he did so, Naruto spoke, "My name is… Akuma-Gaki (Demon-Brat, Demon-Kid). You can call me Akki (Evil Spirit, Demon, Devil)." He thought back to what that odd ninja had said: '"You are that demon-kid aren't you?"' and smiled inwardly.

Midoriiro stared at him as he heard his words, saw his whisker marks and saw the blond hair under his hood. Such a feat of endurance for one so young! But why did he come back, and why did he call himself that, a joke? "Uzumaki Naruto, ka—"

"Don't call me that! My name is Akuma-Gaki, or Akki, if you prefer."

Midoriiro laughed, "A great joke, indeed. How impressive, to achieve satire at such a young age—"

"What is funny, ANBU-sama?"

Midoriiro stopped. Satire or not, this kid seemed serious about being called what he had always been called. Why would he want to be called a demon? "I am taking you to see Hokage-sama."

"Arigato, ANBU-sama"

Midoriiro grabbed the boy and stood up and ran to the gate. 'ANBU-sama? Why the deference?'

He ran towards the gate, not getting stuck in the mud at all, but floating on top of any he stepped on. As he went through the gate, one of his subordinates shouted "Word is that the entire Uchiha clan has been slaughtered." He nodded back and carried on. Was it true? How could it have happened? Well, he definitely would not be able to get to Hokage-sama quickly. Might as well get the kid cleaned up.

As he neared the Hokage tower he turned left towards Konoha Hospital. He slowed down as he reached it, and then walked in. He turned to the right and walked through to the accident and emergency section, and walked to the desk for ninja., as he knew the boy would be processed faster that way. "This boy has been out for a whole day, through the rain. He needs to be cleaned up, warmed up, and possibly treated for hypothermia."

"And why do you take him here? He is a civilian."

"He needs to be in a fit state to see the Hokage as soon as possible. This is my order as an ANBU captain."

Grumbling, the man relented and, after receiving directions, Midoriiro carried to the correct place, handed the boy to a nurse, and sat down on a chair next to a bed. After a few moments, the nurse shrieked and dropped the boy, who woke up with a squeal before sitting up, his jaw juddering up and down.

Guessing the cause of this, Midoriiro spoke: "I order you to see to this boy. You will treat him like any other patient. Is that understood?" the ANBU captain was standing up now, and the woman was staring at him in mild fright. He smiled beneath his mask. Against civilians, the death stance always worked. The position of yourself in such a way that the subconscious of the target thinks that you are ready to attack, to pounce, inciting a fear reaction in the target.

There would be no more problems.

Sarutobi was sitting behind his desk, every now and again getting more reports, usually about the rising death toll from the massacre. He massaged his temples. First, he needed to find out who had done this, and the motive would also be good to have. He needed to know whether the perpetrator was an outsider or from within the village. The worst thing, though, was that Konoha's strength had now been badly hit, losing one of its strongest clans in one day would be damaging both physically and to Konoha's pride and standing.

There was a knock on the door. "Come in." The door opened and Sarutobi Asuma entered.

"Asuma."

"Uchiha Sasuke has been found. He is currently unconscious, but stable, in the hospital. Also, ANBU captain Midoriiro is there and wants to speak to you, I don't know what about. He wouldn't tell me."

"Hmmmm? I wonder what that could be. I will see Sasuke first then. Lead the way, Asuma."

"Hai."

Midoriiro stood outside the door to Naruto's hospital room, where the boy was sleeping soundly, drawing many stares from the large mud patches on the areas of his cloak on his knees and his chest, but remaining oblivious, or at least seemingly so. A door opened to his right, down the corridor. 'Ah, yes, the room where the Uchiha kid is being treated. Is it my chance now?' A moment later, through the door passed a white robed figure wearing the Hokage hat. 'YOSH! It is now my chance to give him some good news at last! THE EPIC STORY OF HOW ONE SO YOUNG MANAGED SO YOUTHFUL A JOURNEY! I HAVE BEEN INSPIRED, AND BECAUSE OF THIS I WILL DO 50 EXTRA LAPS OF KONOHA EACH MORNING, AND SO DEFEAT MY RIVAL KAKASHI, ALL THANKS TO UZUMaki Naruto… Akuma-Gaki, Akki. How will Hokage-sama deal with that?'

Sarutobi turned to his left and walked towards Midoriiro, ignoring the mud on his cloak. "You said you had something to tell me."

"HAI, HOKAGE-SAMA!"

'Forgot that was Gai. This had better be good.' "And what is it?"

Midoriiro opened the door behind him, inviting Sarutobi to go through, which he did, and then closed it after coming in himself. They were in a small anteroom separated from the main room that Naruto was sleeping in.

"Hokage-sama! We have the Fourth's legacy back!"

Sarutobi was a bit taken aback by this. "What did you say?"

"We have the Nine-Tails' Jinchuuriki back! I found him on the road leading to the west gate and carried him here, it is apparent that he had walked a long way to get here. Such determination, such YOUTH! HE IS SURELY AN EXAMPLE FOR US ALL TO FOLLOW AND—"

"Yes, yes, quite, but did you find out anything about what happened when he was absent?"

"Er… no. Not as such. He fell asleep in my arms… Although, there is one thing, for some reason he no longer wants to be called Uzumaki Naruto."

"What?"

"I said—"

"I know what you said!" He sighed. "Inform me when he is up and well. Keep him here until I see him. Make sure word of this does not come out. Is that understood?"

"Hai, Hokage-sama."

"Good." With that, the Hokage left to deal with pressing matters of state, most of them involving the deaths of the Uchiha Clan. Gai entered the room where Naruto was, and turned to the nurse. "Well, it appears that you will have to stay here a while longer, miss…?"

The girl looked absolutely mortified.

The next morning, at approximately 8:00, Midoriiro glanced over the boy's clothes that were laid out on the bedside table. They were a short hooded cloak, an adult size shirt worn as a robe and an adult size pair of shorts fastened with rope. All were threadbare and full of holes, and still smelt of mud after being washed. The most interesting item, however, was a metal chain, of construction unknown to him, and on the end of it was something that obviously was not originally attached to it. It was a bottle cap. It was red, and rusted, and on it was written in a foreign script: 'водочка'. He has seen it before, in the store. It was a drink from the far west, and was called vodochka, or vodka, or some such. It had only been available recently, though, but this was an old cap. How did the boy get it? Either he was given it by a well travelled person, or he found it at a place where there were lots of foreigners: a port. Those were the most likely scenarios.

There was a hiss of static, and then a voice came though, "Taicho, Hokage-sama will be there in less than 5 minutes."

"Understood. Out."

He heard the ruffling of bedclothes. He looked to the left to see that the nurse was still asleep underneath her coat. He felt a tug on his right hand, the one holding the chain. He looked to his right to see Naruto standing on the bed in his hospital gown, holding the end of the chain, the bottle cap, and who then said, "Please give that back."

Midoriiro humoured him, and Naruto dropped it around his neck, and then sat, cross-legged, on the bed. There was a knock on the door, and the Hokage the entered the room.

"Ah, you are up, Naruto."

"Please don't call me that. My name is Akuma-Gaki, but you can call me Akki, Hokage-sama."

"Akuma-Gaki is your name?"

"It, or things similar to it, is the most common label applied to me, so therefore it is my name."

Sarutobi sighed. "Does this mean that you know about the Kyuubi?"

"The what?" he lied.

"I see. Well, some years back we were attacked by the Kyuubi no Yoko, a nine-tailed fox demon. The only thing that the Yondaime Hokage could do was seal it into a new-born, as it was unkillable."

"Why me? Was I the only available new-born?"

"I don't know. You might have been."

"And why do I find out now?"

"Well… before you left, it was against the law to mention it, but everyone knows now, so you should."

"But why was it against the law?"

"This was an attempt to protect you from prejudice among your age group. We will never know, though, whether it would have been a success.

"What I want to know… Akki… Is what happened the night that you left, and why you came back."

'OK, time to make like an innocent and frightened infant.' "I woke up and there were these two men who started beating me, and then I fell asleep, kind of, and then woke up to find them dead and the place covered with blood, so I ran."

"And why did you come back?"

"I want to become strong enough to defend myself."

Sarutobi looked satisfied with that answer. "Now, what have you been doing over the last year…?"

Naruto look away. "I don't want to talk about it. Sorry, I just…"

Sarutobi reached out and put his hand on Akki's bare shoulder, where the oversize gown had slipped off, but the boy stiffened. Sarutobi could almost wear that he felt a pin prick in his palm, as if a spike had quickly appeared and disappeared. He quickly brought his hand away. "Sorry, Akki. Now, what is it that you want?"

"Want?"

"What is it that you desire? Where do you want to live, and so on?"

"Oh. Could I live where I used to live?"

Sarutobi look surprised for a moment. "If you wish…"

"I would also like to join the Ninja Academy."

"Granted."

"I would also like not to be followed by ANBU anymore."

Sarutobi now looked really surprised. "What?! How did you know that you were being followed?"

"I deduced that I would be, given that everybody seemed to hate me."

"Has anyone told you that you are very perceptive for your age?"

"No… should they have?"

The old man chuckled. "Yes. But will you be able to defend yourself without ANBU watching over you?"

"No, but the ANBU can then rush to save me, and whenever people try to kill me I fall asleep and I wake up with them dead…"

'So this has happened more than once…' thought Sarutobi. "Well… that is fine, I suppose… Anything else?"

"Just one last thing. Could I have total, unrestricted access to the Jutsu Library?"

"That is normally restricted to Jounins. Why should I give you access, Akki-kun?" he said, looking straight into the boy's eyes.

Naruto replied, "Everyone else will have people to train them. I want to be able to train myself, and not be restricted to E and D rank techniques."

"Very well, then. However, I am restricting access to the clan-specific techniques."

'There are clan-specific techniques in there?! Cool!' "Arigato, Hokage-sama."

"Well, I must be going. Midoriiro, I am going to inform the council of Na— er, Akuma-Gaki's return. Hanone's team will come to relieve you soon."

He turned, opened the door, and left.

July 15th:

The sun cast its morning shadows across the tree-lined streets as Aburame Shibi carried his son, Shino, on his shoulders towards the Ninja academy. In front of them, a little way away, Uchiha Sasuke walked alone, as he had done for the last few days following his release from hospital. "Tou-san, when do you think Sasuke-san will recover? He has been out of the hospital for days, but he still hasn't talked to anyone."

"I do not know. It depends on him. It could happen quickly, it could not happen at all. There is not enough information for there to be a good analysis.

"Anyway, down you go, we have arrived," he said, lifting his son off his shoulders and placing him on the outer wall of the academy before vanishing.

Shino jumped off the wall onto the grass below, and walked into the academy building, through some corridors and into his classroom, and then to his seat. The noise and bustle was at normal levels, except for the area surrounding Sasuke, where, for the most part, people were being quieter and leaving him to his own thoughts. The dominant topic of conversation was still the news that the demon-kid, or so many people thought him, Shino corrected himself, had somehow returned to Konoha after having been presumed dead for almost a year. More accurately, it was discussion about why none of them had seen him yet. He looked over to the Hyuuga heiress, Hinata, sitting quietly a little away from the rest of the children, a little into the upper right corner area, from the perspective of the teacher, that was the least popular seating area, for the reason that there was a draft there from an old window frame. There had been a rumour going around that a political marriage had been discussed between the Uchiha and Hyuuga clans that would wed her and Itachi. Her behaviour was no different to normal, however, so she was probably unaware of the rumour, true or not.

At that moment his teacher, Umino Iruka, came jogging into the classroom. "Alright, class, settle down please." The bustle diminished and faded into nothing. "I have an announcement to make: at some point today we will be welcoming a new student. I, er, hope that you will do everything you can to make him feel at home…" He was interrupted by whispers among the class. Shino could hear parts of different conversations: "Do you think it will be the Kyuubi kid?" "He doesn't mean…" "Fucking bastard, I'll kill him!" "Whoever the person is, he will be months behind the rest of us. Do you think we will have to go over everything again?"

"Ahem. As I was saying, please make him feel at home. He has been in Konoha for a couple of weeks already, and has received some tutoring to get him up to your level, or at least to get him to a point where he would understand what I will be saying, which is why he has not joined us until today. In the meantime, I want you to form groups of three and work through the problems on page 22 of your textbook."

Half an hour later, there was a knock on the door. "Come in!" called Iruka.

The door opened and a dog-masked ABNU, Hanone, stepped in. Immediately after him stepped a smaller but similarly black-clad figure. He had bright blond hair, three whisker-like marks on each cheek and empty looking blue eyes. He was wearing a black Yukata and a black backpack. There was something odd, however, apart from the colour of his clothing. Shino leaned forward in and tried to figure out what it was. After a moment, he realised what it was: the clothing was scruffy and fraying at the edges and looked like it was made of very cheap material, possibly sackcloth. Why would anyone ever wear such poor quality clothing, especially against their skin?

The boy then started walking up the stairs in the middle of the classroom. "Hey, you forgot your introduction!" shouted Iruka, barely veiling the hatred on his face, failing where he had succeeded before. Shino thought, 'So it is the supposed demon.'

"You do it," came the quiet, almost inaudible to Shino, reply.

Iruka's mouth twitched, but he then coughed and said, "Class, please welcome Akuma-Gaki Akki. Akki will be in our class for the next five years."

'Akuma-Gaki Akki?! What the? Who would name their son Demon-Kid Demon? Or maybe it is true that he really is the demon? Or has his name been changed? If so, why change it to that?'

Akki passed him on the stairs and sat down on the absolute top-right corner, next to the window, after taking off his pack. He took out a book which title Shino could not quite make out and started to read it, noticing, perhaps, that the others were doing group work. Shino supposed that he would be provided with more information with time.

He supposed wrong.

October 10th, Naruto's 12th birthday:

Akki stood in front of the class, having been asked by Mizuki-sensei to perform a kawarimi with an overlarge log, a task the man knew he couldn't do. Akki smirked to himself, not caring that, this time, his smirk could be seen. He would have to perform the perfect miscast. His smirk widened. He started to do the seals, slowly and easily visible, feeling the chakra being moulded in his hands and then sent back to his body, waiting to be set off. As he set it off, he deliberately sent some extra chakra with it to the log, and in a different direction, not just a little, but quite a lot, and prepared for the rough landing.

A split second later, he was smashed sideways into the wall, while the log went the opposite direction and smashed straight into an unsuspecting Mizuki. As he slumped to the floor, Akki turned to look at his sensei. He hid his grin as he saw him stand up, cradling an apparently broken arm.

Akki stood up and walked back to his spot in the top right corner of the classroom. The window had long since been fixed, but, due to his presence, that area of the class was always empty, except for people who were late for class when any other seats were difficult to get to, and they always stayed on the edge of that area. He mused on what he remembered of his time in Konoha: he had been bottom of the class in everything, in every year, and so was regarded as a useless weakling as well as a demon. A contradiction, possibly, but it suited him fine. However, he still wanted to pass, so he would have to do well on the final exam. If he failed, he would be stuck in this place for another year, at worst. Not disastrous, but there was no need to make himself suffer more than necessary. Just five more days of the academy… After that, his movements would be more restricted than ever.

The commotion at the front of the classroom seemed to be dying down. Akki looked around and saw that people were starting pack their bags and go home. He dumped his stuff into his own, closed it and put it on. He turned left and opened the window, exited, and closed it behind him. He jumped on the roof of an adjacent building and leaped the way back to his apartment.

Once he arrived, he placed his hand on the frame at the spot where the catch was on the other side. 'There are no Hyuuga anywhere near me, this should be fine.' A short tendril of chakra snaked its way out of a tenketsu on his palm, going through the frame, grabbed the catch and opened it before receding back into Naruto's hand. He then pushed chakra to his hand, which then stuck to the window frame, and pulled, pulling the window open. He jumped in, closing the window, and the catch, behind him. He waggled his shoulders, sliding his pack off his back, and placed it on the bed, before opening the door to the kitchen and going through. He stepped into the closet, as if going for food, and closed the door behind him.

In the darkness, he groped for the light switch and flicked it. He reached down to the socket on the side wall and stuck the fridge plug into it, and turned the switch on the socket on. He then reached down to his knee and removed his yukata from covering it. He receded his skin from a spot on his knee and pushed his kneecap through a little so it stuck out. On it could be seen, in black, a seal like those typically seen in sealing scrolls. It was made up of many smaller seals. He pushed chakra towards the seal that said "sake". A bottle of colourless liquid puffed into existence, and he caught it before it dropped on the floor. On it was a label with the legend 'водочка'. He repeated the operation a few times, getting some bottles of fizzy cola drink. He placed all these into his fridge, his fridge that he only used once a year. His kneecap receded back into his body.

'That vodka will definitely have been worth stealing, hehe… Here's to you, Kisuke.'

"I prefer that cloudy drink you had by accident once. Vodka is disgusting."

'Nigori sake, you mean?'

"YES! Get that stuff!"

'Sometimes I resent the fact that you can selectively experience whatever I do.'

"You will get it though, yes?"

'Yes, you know I like the stuff myself. It is nice and sweet.'

"Good kit."

'Shut up.'

He left the closet, shutting the light and door after him. He left his apartment, by the front door this time, and jumped onto the roof. He looked around. It was a beautiful afternoon. In the distance he could see today's training ground, the area known as The Forest of Death. It was a circular patch of jungle with a tower in the middle, 20 kilometres in diameter. He was going to see how fast he could cross it. He landed in front of one of the 44 gates and looked around to see that he was alone. He jumped over the fence and into the trees. He ran a little deeper into the forest.

Eventually he reached a clearing a few hundred metres in, and landed in the middle of it. He put his hands into a familiar seal, the one for the first B-rank jutsu he had ever learned from the library. He smiled to himself, before too long he would be able to make this jutsu sealless, as he already could under controlled conditions. He passed chakra through his fingers and back into his body 200 times, and 200 clones appeared before him.

"The aim of this exercise is to improve our navigation, tracking and evading skills in a forest. We are going to scatter for 5 minutes, and then seek each other out while trying not to be found. When you have found another clone, sneak attack it to kill it. If you are attacked, but kill your opponent, then you win and carry on. No more shadow clones can be produced by any of us, nor will tails be used. Once I am the only one left, I will leave. Understood?"

They nodded.

"Go."

They all scattered. He then went himself.

Some time later, as he was travelling through the forest, he glanced his watch. 5 minutes were nearly up. '3… 2… 1… Now.' He sent a surge of chakra straight to his eyes, and his vision suddenly became extraordinarily sharp in the area governed by the fovea, and his peripheral vision range increased to nearly a full π radians. He pumped more chakra up to his eyes, and the area governed by the fovea became even clearer, and he started to look right through the trees. He looked around, but could see none anywhere near him. The next moment, he felt chakra being sent back to him. A clone had been despatched. Then another, and yet another. 197 clones left.

He jumped to the right and started searching for a target. He felt another clone die. '196.' Then he saw one and jumped back. He pumped more chakra to his eyes, and his range increased. He could now see his target again, and could see that its chakra amount in its eyes was lower than his. It hadn't seen him. The clone then ran off in a different direction and increased its chakra amount. 'Perfect, he has found one, so I have two targets. I can only put in a little more though.' He pumped more chakra into his eyes, and they started to ache badly. This was more than he had ever used in them. Still, no pain, no gain. He could feel the veins at the side of his head throbbing badly, but kept the chakra amount steady as he ran, every so often taking looks around and through the forest to make sure he was not being followed.

At last he saw his target's target, apparently without a target of its own, its white eyes searching around as it wandered aimlessly through the forest. Naruto changed direction so that he was now running parallel to, and gaining on, his target and its target. He just now could see his target getting in position to strike. 'I won't let you!'

He sent chakra to each of hands and out of their tenketsu, adding both lightning and earth manipulation to it. A moment later, he felt the warm metallic handle of a kunai in each of his hands. He brought his left hand in front of his face with the kunai in it and then threw it at his target's throat, its path in the shadows as much as possible, to be difficult to see amongst the light, due to the comparative lack of contrast. The kunai flew through the air and sliced the clone's throat open, and the clone then puffed away. Unfortunately, his other target heard this and was now charging at him. He ran at him, and thrust his palm at it, but the clone dodged and sent its own palm. Naruto jumped up to avoid it and kicked the clone in the face. The clone now started falling down and so couldn't dodge. Naruto threw the other kunai at the clone's throat and it puffed away.

The next hour was spent in pretty much the same way. By the time that he killed the last clone, he was pretty shagged out and was panting on a branch, his eyes back to normal. He pushed his kneecap out again, and summoned back into existence a flask full of water, which he drunk dry before returning and receding his kneecap. He looked up at the sky. It would still be light for a couple of hours, he had plenty of time. He inspected himself. He was wearing what was left of his yukata tied around his hips, covering his shorts.

Mitarashi Anko was watching Akki from a distance. She had been alerted to his presence some time earlier when she had been sent here to inspect the tower to make sure it would be ready for the next Chuunin exams that were in Konoha. She had heard some sounds of fighting and arrived only to see that both combatants had disappeared, with a kunai still falling to the ground. 'A genin, huh? Or an academy student? Probably a genin. What is that little shit doing in MY obstacle course? He is good looking though,' she thought, licking her lips unconsciously. 'Unfortunately, I am not allowed to kill academy students, and the old man will probably be pissed off if I kill a genin…' She started leaping towards Akki's position.

Naruto thought he heard footsteps coming in his direction, but did not move as he thought himself too tired to either run or fight effectively, as he was still panting heavily. As soon as he thought this, he law a pair of feet and legs, surrounded by the bottom of a tan trench coat, land in front of him.

"Konbanwa, kunoichi-sama," said Akki. Anko was a little taken aback. 'What is that little shit up to?'

"What is your name?

"Akuma-Gaki Akki, kunoichi-sama."

"The Kyuubi kid, huh. What are you doing here? This is a forbidden and dangerous area," she said in a tone that indicated that she, at least, did not consider it dangerous, or indeed forbidden.

"Training. This place suits my needs: quiet, large and with lots of cover."

"Training, huh? You really are a cocky little twat, aren't you? I'll train you, I specialise in training people to GET THE FUCK OFF MY OBSTACLE!" She then lunged at Akki, kunai in hand. Surprised, mid-pant, Akki did the only thing he could think to do at this point. With practised precision, he moulded chakra in his abdomen in the shapes of the seals used in the kawarimi technique. With the kunai just millimetres from his left eye, he released the chakra, swapping his position with Anko, allowing him to jump off the branch and onto an adjacent tree and get into a ready position, his hands at his chest ready to form seals if necessary.

An unsuspecting Anko tripped as her position was changed. She put her hand down on the branch and flipped herself so that she was now standing sideways against the trunk of the tree facing the boy, her trench coat hanging at a right angle to her body. 'Impressive. His jounin-sensei must be good. I wonder who it is. Kakashi-kun? Hehehe…' "Nicely done, gaki. Your jounin-sensei must be good. Who is it? I want to castrate him personally for allowing a shit like you into my area."

"I have no jounin-sensei. My genin exam is in five days time, kunoichi-sama."

She doubled over laughing. When she had recovered, she said, "No, really, who is it?"

"What is funny, kunoichi-sama? I am just an academy student, and I am bottom of my class."

She glared at him. "Trying to insult me, are you?"

"No, kunoichi-sama."

She sneered. "We'll see about that! Kuchiyose no jutsu!" She did a quick set of seals after biting her thumb and placed her bloody hand on the branch below her. A huge snake appeared with Anko lying on top of it. She righted herself. She and her snake were now coming straight for Akki.

'Fucking crazy bitch is trying to kill me. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck! FUCK! I've got to get out of here in one piece without revealing anything of significance. Ah… I hope this works…' He started making seals for the kawarimi while the kage bunshin seal was being formed in his abdomen a little shakily. He had now finished the kawarimi seals, but the kage bunshin seal was still unfinished. 'Shit! Come on comeoncomeon! Yes!' He released the last of his easily accessible chakra reserves in one blow.

As she was bearing down on him, Anko could see Akki making seals. 'Kawarimi? Why is he making seals now when he didn't need them before?' She then saw him finish the seals and pause. 'He's stopped! What the fuck is the bastard waiting for?' After a few seconds, when she was now very close, she got the answer. There was a puff of smoke and Akki disappeared. 'The object will be here in just a moment,' she thought as the snake lifted its head high so she could see which tree toppled over. However, not just one single tree toppled, but hundreds, all around Anko's position and at different distances. Her eyes widened. 'That wanker he… oh fuck!' She heard the thumping sound of the replacement log arriving, and then the sound of another log smashing into it and sending it flying, and then again, and again, until there were hundreds of logs flying in the air in all directions.

She dived down onto the snake's head and started frantically making seals. "Hebi-hyouhi no jutsu!" Her trench coat expanded to cover her whole body in a protective dome. She could feel the snake underneath her being pummelled by the logs and could see when they bounced off her trench coat. 'That cunt's going to get it when I see him again, and I will!'

Meanwhile, the summoned snake had got tired of being pummelled to death and unsummoned itself. As she was dropping, she shouted "Sen'eijashu" (Hidden Shadow Snake Hand) and snakes came from one of her hands and grabbed onto a nearby tree and pulled her towards it, and she 'landed' gracefully onto its trunk, sideways. She looked around to survey the damage. Hundreds of trees had been felled, and hundreds more badly damaged. She giggled, and then started cackling maniacally. 'He sure has guts, but I don't believe him for a second when he says he is in the academy. Lying scumbag.'

Meanwhile, a winded Naruto was running as fast as he could towards the edge of the Forest of Death. His arm and three of his ribs were broken on his right side, as a result of being hit by a flying log during the replacement itself. It had worked, but he wasn't going to add the technique to his collection of frequently used ones. However, the prospect of doing two techniques at once excited him.

The fence was now in sight. He jumped over and landed on the other side and kept running until he reached the village, hen he leaped from roof to roof until he was back in his flat. He leant against the door, sweat gleaming off his body in the sunlight from the west facing window, and leaving a wet patch on the door. With effort he extracted some of the fox's chakra and sent it to his arm and ribs to heal them. He slid down the door, leaving a sweat streak, until he was sitting. After a minute or two, when his heart had settled down, he stood up and walked into the kitchen.

He lay down on the bar with his head in the sink and turned on the cold tap to cool his head and quench his thirst. After a while, he stood up and walked to his bedroom and opened his wardrobe. In it there was only one remaining black yukata. He looked beside the wardrobe at what he called his "sewing basket", a linen basket full of broken, torn or burnt black yukata, and beside it was a large roll of cheap, black fabric. 'Fuck it, I'm not sewing tonight,' he thought, as he opened the window and left.

Teuchi was serving a customer when underneath the blinds he could see a pair of bare juvenile male legs drop to the ground, and he saw the owner of the legs walk through the blinds.

"Training again, Akki-kun?"

"Hai, Teuchi-sama. May I please have 3 pork miso ramen, and 2 beef miso ramen, and a serving of nigori sake? It took me an hour and a half to sneak my way here." It was the same every October 10th, it would take ages to travel anywhere during the evening if he wanted to avoid trouble, and he had had enough of that that day already.

Teuchi looked around and noted that all of his other customers had taken the tables furthest from the bar. "I will get your ramen immediately." As he put the first bowl down he dropped a rolled up piece of paper on the table. Akki picked it up and read it: 'Meet me around the back when you are content. The food and drink will be free tonight. Happy birthday, Akki-kun.'

Akki smiled as he started slurping up his ramen with record speed, even for him. He didn't talk much to anyone, including Teuchi, but for a reason he couldn't fathom, he always gave him free food on his birthday.

Twelve bowls later, Teuchi caught his eye and nodded at him, and then went to the room behind the bar. Akki stood up. He walked out the blinds, the streets thankfully quiet, as the party was being held in front of the Hokage monument. He jumped onto the roof, walked across it, and landed in the deliveries area amongst the stacks of ingredients. He walked out in front of the old man, and took the bag that was on the floor. "Doumo arigatou gozaimashita, ossama."

Teuchi nodded in reply as Akki left, and then sighed. He found it distressing that the person carrying such a burden for his village would embrace his low social status in such a way. 'Hopefully, once he is a shinobi he will gain the favour of the villagers, but I don't understand why he would want to.'

Anko was sitting outside the Hokage's office, waiting for her turn. She heard the handle of the door being turned and saw Sarutobi Asuma walking out and lighting a cigarette. She stood up and walked through the door, closing it behind her.

"Ah, Anko-kun! What is it?" asked Sarutobi, looking up from a file.

"I performed the inspection of the site, as you asked, Hokage-sama. As far as I am concerned, it is ready for use in the exam. However, I have a question: who is Akuma-Gaki Akki's jounin-sensei? I have some words for him."

"Jounin-sensei? You are mistaken, Akki is still in the academy, bottom of his class. Why do you ask?" he said, noticing a vein on Anko's temple throbbing.

"There is no way that that little shit is still in the academy! Look at this!" she said, placing a scroll on the desk, which Sarutobi picked up.

'A memory scroll?' he thought. 'Why did she give me a memory scroll?' He placed it back on the desk and unrolled it, revealing a seal. Anko bit her hand and wiped it on the seal, and a moving image with sound appeared in the air above it. It showed the perspective of someone leaping from tree to tree while hearing the sound of a fight, and then showing a kunai dropping to the ground. It then showed the person searching around for someone, and then seeing Akki half naked panting on a tree branch. Then came the sound of Anko's voice, echoing a little, "A genin, huh? Or an academy student? Probably a genin. What is that little shit doing in MY obstacle course? He is good looking though. Unfortunately, I am not allowed to kill academy students, and the old man will probably be pissed off if I kill a genin…"

"I did not know your tastes tended to ones so young Anko." She pouted and turned her head away.

Sarutobi then heard the exchange of words, then the sealless kawarimi, and then the explosion of logs, and then the film stopped.

"See? There is no way the little bastard is in the academy!"

"I am afraid he is, though, Anko, unless he was being impersonated and, if so, they captured his manner of speech very well. I will look into it, though. Thank you for bringing this to my attention."

Anko bowed and left. Sarutobi thought to himself, 'Either this is Naruto, in which he has done a very good at deceiving us, and in an unorthodox way, since the typical pattern is to pretend to be average, not bad, or we have a spy who for some reason disguised himself as Naruto, which is even stranger.'

He rang the bell on his desk and an ANBU squad. "Fukurou, I want you to fetch Kakashi. Don't just tell him, fetch him. I want him here immediately. The rest of you, I want you to search the Forest of Death for anything suspicious, though I don't expect you to find anything except kunai and fallen trees and logs." The four nodded and went their separate ways.

Kakashi was standing in front of the war memorial looking, rather than at Obito's name, instead at the name of the Yondaime, Kazama Arashi, and thinking of the Kyuubi vessel that, as ANBU Captain Hanone, had been his charge for so long. What had happened to him since he came back, what happened while he was away? He was completely different to how he had been before that night; there were few conversations where he had said anything but "Hai, X-sama," or some similar thing. He sometimes wished that the Sandaime actually had given him to Ibiki, just so that he could know exactly what had happened as a result of the second biggest mistake of his career, from his point of view.

'Now all there is is what seems to be a husk of a human being who wants to get stronger so that he can defend himself and, as test results would indicate, failing miserably at it. Would it have happened anyway if—'

He was interrupted in his musings by the sound of someone landing behind him. He turned to face an owl faced ANBU, who said "Kakashi-san, Hokage-sama instructed me to take you to him, please come with me."

Kakashi smiled, he could still recognise Tenzou's voice under the ANBU voice distortion system, and nodded, and they shunshined (body flickered) their way to the Hokage's office. "Ah, Kakashi-kun, please sit down." He did so.

"What is it, Hokage-sama?"

"If I remember correctly, you presented an interest in training Uchiha Sasuke after his graduation. Am I correct?"

"Hai, Hokage-sama."

"Well, this is the team I am considering giving you this year, if they all pass the preliminary exam," he said as he passed Kakashi a slip of paper. Kakashi looked at it and saw the names: Uchiha Sasuke, Hyuuga Hinata, Akuma-Gaki Akki. His heart stopped for a moment as he looked at the last name: 'Demon-Kid Demon, yes, that is the name he took. What is this all about?'

"I am confused. I thought the Hyuuga would be in Kurenai's scouting team? Who would replace her? Also, Akki is not even expected to pass the preliminary, and the bets are that he would be put in with a team of no-hopers if he did somehow pass."

"The Hyuuga was initially considered only for the scouting team, that is true, but there is a reason for her being in this team. She will be replaced by Haruno Sakura, who might make a potential medic, possibly. It is messy, but it might have to be done. As for Akki, well, he is the reason for Hinata being on this team."

"Oh? Why is that?"

"Mitarashi Anko was inspecting the Forest of Death for the Chuunin exams this afternoon and encountered someone who looked and acted like Akki there, and challenged him. This person managed, in quite quick succession, to replace his and her positions when she attacked him and, after she had summoned a snake, to somehow replace himself with logs at least 200 times, possibly by combining a cloning technique with the kawarimi, and so nearly killed her because of the hundreds of flying logs, not to mention significantly scarring the forest. If Akki passes, which given his performance over the last few years the feeling of deceit, it might well have actually been him. I am putting him on your team, where all the other three would, if Sasuke got his, have doujutsu, so that he can be kept an eye on. Particularly that is the reason why Hinata is there. You must convince her to observe Akki, but in such a way that does not tell her that he is under suspicion of anything. Is that understood?"

Kakashi looked a bit bewildered, but said, "Hai, Hokage-sama." 'Well, maybe I will be able to make it up to him, somehow, now?'

Naruto placed his hand against his window frame and used the chakra tendril to open the catch before entering the window and closing it behind him. He dropped the bag on the table and heard the sound of the bottle within impacting each other. It had taken him a long time to get back to the flat, but now at last was the time where he could get smashed and forget his troubles for a few hours. He stepped into the bathroom and had quick shower before putting on his last remaining yukata, hoping that he wouldn't have to sew the others until tomorrow, that is, not to ruin his last one.

He walked into the closet and turned the fridge off. He wouldn't be needing it again for a while, if at all, if all went to plan. He opened it and took out the large bottle of vodka and the cola drink and went back into the kitchen, placing them on the table and unpacking the bag, revealing 3 bottles of nigori sake, sweet nectar. He chuckled to himself as he reflected that he was very young to be drinking such large amounts of ethanol, but would never experience a hangover in his life.

He walked over to his cheap stereo system, putting in his CD of music that had only recently come to Fire Country: Oi!, ska and punk. A few punk riffs came from the machine, and then, "This song is dedicated to Jiraiya-sama and Sarutobi-sama!... Drunk sake in the hot sun, I fought the law and I won, I fought the law and I won. I needed sex and I got mine, I fought the law and I won, I fought the law and I won. The law don't mean shit if you've got the right friends. That's how the country's run. The girls are the best friends I ever had, I fought the law and I won, I fought the law and I won. I blew another customer's money with my girl, I fought the law and I won, I fought the law and I won. Gonna write my book and make a million, I fought the law and I won, I fought the law and I won. I'm the new folk hero to every man, my girl-friends thinks that's fine, you can get away with anything when a Sannin, I fought the law and I won, I fought the law and I won, I fought the law and I won, I am the law, so I won…"

By this time, Naruto was singing along. 'Now for some company. Clones are better than nothing.' He grabbed hold of all the bottles in his arms, with his hands on the other side, and formed the kage bunshin seal. A moment later, there were four Naruto's around the table, each with the same amount of drink with them. The real Naruto looked at the label on the bottle, and then on the bottle-cap on the chain around his neck. 'Here's to you Kisuke, Shinji, Kenshin.' He took off the screw top off the bottle and swigged some. His throat burned, just like it did every year. He replaced the top and, along with his clones, started to mix and match nigori sake with cocktails of cola and vodka.

October 15th:

Naruto woke up with a smile that day. 'Today will be my last day of academy, and then I will get real tuition, enough to get strong enough so that it never happens again.' He sat up and slowly made a set of seals, in such a way that they could be disguised as some sort of religious ritual, that he did each morning. He felt his skin tighten as the jutsu came into effect. This technique gave resistance to all his movements, effectively making him stiff jointed, allowing him both to train his strength and to disguise it and his agility. It also required varying chakra supply depending on his movements, making chakra control very difficult which, again, suited his purposes. The amount of resistance could be varied by chakra as well, allowing him to vary the severity of the training. He called it gikochinai no jutsu (stiffness technique).

He remembered back to the previous day: there had been a review of all the academy jutsu. When his turn had come up, he had transformed into a naked woman in front of Iruka-sensei. He giggled a little to himself, before adopting his normal persona: robotic and emotionless to the best of his ability. He dressed, as normal, except that today he did not put on his chain, but placed it inside his kneecap, for safety. He would be a ninja tomorrow and, despite the fact most missions were D-ranks, he really did not want to lose it.

Today he was wearing his normal black yukata and black shorts but also, unlike a few days ago, his shuriken holster on his right thigh, in the same cheap black cloth, and his kunai pouch. He looked outside to the window, and saw that it was going to be a very sunny and hot day. He took a brown fedora out of his wardrobe and put it on. He had found it around the back of a novelty shop, and it was functional enough.

Today was also the day of the last payment he would get from the Hokage, assuming he passed the Genin exam. He would have to pick it up.

He picked up his pack, put it on, and left the house, feeling the sunlight against the side of his face. He walked down a few streets until he got to the Hokage tower and the bank within that was used for ninja. Once he had entered the bank, he walked over to the cashier's desk and he was handed a packet of money by the chuunin at the desk, who was looking decidedly bored. The money was supposed to last the month, but Naruto never used much of it. He still had enough left over from the payment from three months ago for his infrequent meals at the ramen stand, infrequent because he did not want to scare away the old man's custom.

He left and walked down a deserted side street. He then stopped and quickly did the seals for a henge, transforming into a tall, brown haired young man wearing an expensive looking kimono and hakama. He continued down the street and then turned left, walking for a bit until he got to a civilian bank, which normally would not even let him enter. He entered and went to the cashier's desk and said "Hello, I am Yamada Tarou. I would like to deposit this into my account. Thanks…"

He arrived at the academy, untransformed, some minutes later. 'The security there is and has always been non-existent. I wonder why they allow it to be so lax in a ninja village.' He turned the corner in the corridor and then entered the classroom door. 'Ah, Mizuki is back, finally recovered. Good for him, I suppose. Haha…' He walked to his normal seat and sat down.

Mizuki looked at him. 'There's the bakemono. I am going to use that bastard and then kill him.' He smiled and waved at Akki, who just stared at him. 'Definitely. I am going to get the scroll and kill him.'

Some hours later it was Naruto's turn. "Akuma-Gaki Akki, your turn," came Mizuki's voice. Akki jumped down the stairs and went through the door to the examination room. There had been a delay for his turn, but it was probably nothing. "Bunshin no jutsu," said Iruka

"Hai, Iruka-sensei."

He slowly performed the seals, making sure that be got it right despite gikochinai no jutsu. As he set off the chakra, he noticed Mizuki doing a seal behind Iruka, that of Jutsu Shou, the technique neutralisation technique. As a result, the clones flickered to existence and then immediately disappeared just before completion. "Akuma-Gaki Akki, fail," said Iruka.

Akki glared at Mizuki before leaving by the other door and going to stand on the swing. He filtered out the noise of the parents congratulating their children, it did not interest him. 'Fucking cuntcasket Mizuki. I am going to disembowel him and then feed it to him!' At that moment, Mizuki landed by him wearing a smirk.

"You sabotaged me. Here to gloat over your success?"

"Oh, no. I just have something I want you to do. In return, I will pass you. It is an unofficial test we give to those we think should have passed. Interested?"

"If that is the case then why did you sabotage me?"

"I don't like you, but I am giving you this opportunity."

'Meh. If he is lying I can kill when no one watches, I suppose. I will certainly injure him.' "Go on."

"I want you to take the Scroll of Sealing from Hokage tower and bring it to me. You will meet me at…"

Naruto was sitting down on the ground in a clearing; poring over the Scroll of Sealing; copying it all down in case he ever had a use for the stuff, except of course for the passages detailing kage bunshin no jutsu. Bunshin daibakuha (clone great explosion) looked interesting, but the rest of them were only really useful for particular circumstances, most of which allowed you some time of preparation. He would definitely be training bunshin daibakuha over the next few days or more, it looked worth it. He rolled the scroll back up and put it on his lap, while sealing the copy back into his kneecap.

Iruka was running through the forest, searching for anywhere where the demon-boy could be. 'What is he doing? Trying to unseal himself? If so, I must kill him before he succeeds. What other reason could there be?' He came to the fifth clearing so far, and saw the boy sitting down with the scroll on his lap, seemingly waiting for something. "Akki? What are you doing with that scroll?" he asked.

"Konbanwa, Iruka-sensei. Mizuki-sensei said that there was an unofficial test where if I took this scroll here and showed you a technique from it, I would graduate as a genin. Was he wrong?"

"Mizuki told you that?"

"Hai."

At that moment a stream of kunai were thrown at Akki. Unfortunately, he still had gikochinai active and so was only able to dodge half of them, the others sticking into him, but not causing any significant damage. He picked up the scroll and turned his empty stare towards Mizuki, who was standing on a tree branch. "It is now obvious that there was no test. You are either trying to take the scroll, kill me, or both. Here, Iruka-sensei," he said, chucking the scroll to Iruka who caught it while looking at him dubiously.

"Hehe, bakemono, I am going to kill you as should have been done 12 years ago, and then I am taking that scroll, whether you like it or not, Iruka."

Akki stopped gikochinai, enjoying the freedom of movement he now had, and ripped the kunai out of his body while wincing slightly. He now had three, one in his left hand and two in his right. He threw one of the two in his right hand at Mizuki's throat at what was considered high genin speed and charged at him. Mizuki caught the kunai that was thrown at him and dropped to the ground and ran towards Akki holding the kunai in his hand. Just as they were about to reach each other Akki did a quick set of seals and, before Mizuki could do anything, replaced himself with a log, which crashed into Mizuki's chest and abdomen, winding him and causing him to fall over. At that moment, the log disappeared and Akki reappeared in its stead, having used kawarimi a second time, and stamped his foot down hard on Mizuki's neck, which made the snapping sound as it broke and Mizuki died.

"No one kills me, I will never let anyone kill me," Akki said as he kicked Mizuki again to make sure he was dead.

Iruka, who had watched all this, stared at him and thought 'Nothing he did was particularly spectacular, but he used the kawarimi well and, well, if he dies on a mission there is no loss, so… Also, of course, it means I wouldn't have to teach him…' "Akki, pick up Mizuki's corpse and come with me."

"Hai, Iruka-sensei."

"So you say that Mizuki used Jutsu Shou when you were doing the Bunshin technique?"

"Hai, Hokage-sama."

"Please perform bunshin now."

"How many?"

"10."

"Hai."

With a quick flash of seals and the setting off of the chakra, there were now 10 bunshins positioned around the room. "That is sufficient, you may release the jutsu."

Akki let the clones vanish and was passed a hitai-ate by Iruka. 'Finally.' He tied it loosely around his neck, the place that was least likely to have a bone grow out of it and yet still look normal. He then quickly bowed and said, "Doumo arigatou gozaimashita."

"Iruka, Akki, you are both dismissed." 'Naruto seems to show a certain willingness to kill that is disturbing in one so young, but I suppose that can be a benefit to a shinobi.'

October 17th:

Akki walked into the classroom just as he normally did, attracting a few stares as he walked to his normal seat. Shikamaru shouted, "Oi, bakemono, only those who passed are supposed to be here. Get out!"

"Moushiwake arimasen (a very formal expression for "sorry") Nara-sama, demo..." he said, pointing at the hitai-ate tied around his neck. 'Like a collar… Hehe... Should I be encouraged or disheartened by the fact that everyone accepts my deference and formality, now? The positioning of others lower than themselves in the social ladder is one of the worst things in human society.'

"Eh? How did that happen?"

"The Sandaime allowed me to retake the test."

"Wha? Why the hell would he let you retake?"

"I do not know. You could ask him."

As he said that Iruka walked in. "Ah, good you are all here. We can start then," he said over the noise of the Sasuke admiring girls. "Beginning today, all of you are real ninjas. But you are still merely "rookie" genin, the hard part has just started. Now… You will soon be assigned duties by the village. So today we will be creating the 3 man teams… And each team will have a 'jounin' sensei. You will follow that sensei's instructions as you complete the assigned duties. We tried to balance each team's strength…" There was a little of a stir when the teams were mentioned.

Akki thought, 'Real ninjas? Pffft. Unless I am lucky or unlucky, nothing will happen until the chuunin exams. Teams? Why is everyone acting so surprised? Do they not go to the library?'

"… Team 7: Akuma-Gaki Akki, Uchiha Sasuke ('Expected, and according to plan. At least I will have a decent team now.') and Hyuuga Hinata." 'What the fuck? Since when did they put the dead last with someone not far above the dead last? Oh, feck, it's a Hyuuga, now I won't have even a moment of privacy. Everything is fucking cocked up now. I will have to change the plan again. First that crazy bitch in the forest, then Mizuki and now this. Wait… They didn't place her in my team because of what happened in the forest did they? Have they been suspicious of me for a while? No, that woman must really have asked about my non-existant jounin-sensei. Damn her. An Uchiha and a Hyuuga spying on me, that really is all I need…' He turned his stare towards the Hyuuga girl, who had remained the closest one to him in the seating arrangement. 'Such a timid person. If I am right to be paranoid, it is important that I get to her before my new sensei. Either that, or sacrifice some of my secrecy for the sake of being seen as absolutely loyal to Konoha…'

"OK, this afternoon we'll introduce the jounin senseis. Take a break until then."

The Hokage opened the door, Kakashi following soon after. "So this is his house? I did not imagine it being so bare," he said to the old man. There were no pictures on the walls, and the floor near to the walls was dusty.

"Yes, this is his house." They walked into the kitchen, the floor here also dusty except for a trail that led to another door, a bedroom, and to a window, heavily used, and a thin one leading to a closet, recently used, but before that not for a long time. Standing on the heavily used trail, they noticed that all the kitchen surfaces, except for the table and the area around it, were dusty, it seeming that the table had been used recently but not at all before that. Akki obviously did not cook, or at least not here, and did not often store food, or at least not in this room. "There should be a fridge in the closet, but it seems to be off."

"Do you give him enough money to survive only on take-aways or restaurant food, Hokage-sama?"

"Only if he eats only restaurant ramen, once a day, without eating anything else. We have found our resident poacher, or at least one of them."

"What if forest animals are all he eats?"

"Then he is the only one." They came up to the bedroom door and opened it. There was an unmade bed there, a wardrobe, a linen basket and a washing machine and a bedside table, nothing else.

Kakashi picked up a yukata from the linen basket. "This is all torn apart, and some bits look burned off, and what is with the shitty material?"

A long time later…

The room was empty except for three adolescents, Hyuuga Hinata, Akuma-Gaki Akki and Uchiha Sasuke. The only noises were of Akki turning the pages of a book he seemed to be reading and writing notes in it. It had a blank cover and appeared to be handwritten, but noone asked him about it. Hinata looked like she had been crying, possibly as a result of being hassled by the Sasuke club, and Sasuke himself just brooded as he always did, 'Must kill Itachi, must restore clan, must get stronger…' while for Akki it was 'I hate this place, must leave, must get stronger, fucking Hyuugas…'

The door to the room slid aside, and a man in a ninja vest, with a mask and a hitai-ate over his eye stepped in and looked over them as they stared at him. His gaze lasted a little longer than it should when it fell on Akki.

"How do I say this? My first impression is… You are boring!"

"Ok… Let's begin with some introductions." There was silence from the three sitting adolescents. 'Oh, great,' thought Kakashi. "How about you tell me your name, likes and dislikes, hobbies, dreams, that sort of thing… I'll go first, shall I? My name is Hatake Kakashi," at this Akki's head lifted up and he stared at him, 'Sharingan no Kakashi, oh fuck…' "I have no desire to tell you guys about my likes and dislikes. Dreams for the future…? Hmmmm… Well, I have lots of hobbies. Right, you, White-Eye."

"A-Ano… m-my name is Hy-Hyuuga Hinata… I l-like cinnamon rolls a-and um… my dislikes…" she visibly paled, "Ano… I like to p-press f-flowers and my dream is to improve myself…" sha said, her mumbles fading into inaudibility. 'The famous Hyuuga confidence, huh?' thought Kakashi.

"Alright, you, heartthrob."

Sasuke glared at him. "My name is Uchiha Sasuke. There are tons of things I dislike, but I don't really like anything. And… I don't want to use the word 'dream' but… I have an ambition. The resurrection of my clan and… to kill a certain man," he said, causing Hinata to jump at the last bit.

'I thought so…' "OK, now the Jinchuuriki." Confusion showed on Hinata and Sasuke's faces. 'Power of human sacrifice?'

Akki stared his empty stare at Kakashi for a moment. 'He is not only in the know, but is trying to bait me.' "My primary identifier is Akuma-Gaki Akki, Hatake-sensei. I have no name. My likes and dislikes are irrelevant, as are my hobbies. I have no dream."

'Worse than I thought, if he is being truthful. Why does he dwell on the difference between an identifier and a name and claim he has none?' "OK! We will start our duties tomorrow. Our first duty is survival training."

"D-Demo… we did training at the academy…"

"I'm your opponent, but this isn't normal training."

"Th-Then what is it, Ka-Kakashi-sensei?"

'Let's see if I can get Naruto to show a reaction…' "Hehehe… When I tell you this, you guys are definitely going to flip. Hahaha… Of the 27 graduates, only 9 will be chosen as genin. The rest will be sent back to the academy."

'So, only three teams will pass,' thought Akki, 'unless they sorted us into teams now for no real reason, which is my case is almost certainly not the case, this entire team must pass, or we all fail.'

"This training is a super difficult exam with a failure rate of over 66!" Sasuke glared at him, while Hinata looked scared, not at him, but seemingly by some third party that might have an interest in this. Akki seemed completely unmoved, not moving a muscle. 'Damn!' "Er… right. Anyway, tomorrow you will be graded on the training field. Bring all your shinobi tools. Oh, and skip breakfast, you'll throw up."

'I don't throw up. I will make sure to have an extra large breakfast, I do not want to have to hunt after a tiring exam,' thought Akki.

"The details can be read on this printout. Don't be late tomorrow."

'And you will be? Meh, I can always have a second meal in the meantime.'

'I must pass this for tou-san! Otherwise…' thought Hinata.

'Just another hurdle,' thought Sasuke.

A/N: Well, I did not intend it to be so long, but for me the story really started with the survival examination, so I thought I might as well get all the introduction done in one go. Please, if you can, feel free to correct my Japanese, or facts about the Naruto universe.

Jutsu list:

Kuchiyose no jutsu: Summoning technique

Kage bunshin no jutsu: Shadow Clone/Replication technique

Kawarimi no jutsu: Replacement technique

Gikochinai no jutsu: Stiffness technique

Hebi-hyouhi no jutsu: Snake skin technique

Sen'eijashu: Hidden shadow snake hands

Bunshin no jutsu: Clone/Replication technique

Jutsu shou: Technique neutralisation (Sarutobi used this in his fight against Orochimaru, against the third Edo Tensei)

Bunshin daibakuha no jutsu: Clone great explosion technique