Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto and I'm making no profit from this work of fiction, so you'd best keep those lawyers away from me. We don't take kindly to lawyers in these here parts. Ain't overly fond of mimes either.

Uzumaki Naruto was sitting on the ground of Training Field 7, tied to a log, watching his "team"1 walk off into the sunset. He wasn't sure if they had forgotten him or if they just didn't care. What he was sure of was just how tired he was of this shit, because these kind of circumstances were, unfortunately, quite common for the young blond. He had been ignored, looked down upon, and outright hated since the day he was born. Now usually at this point, young Naruto would yell and swear half the night until he finally managed to work himself free. He would go home, sleep a few hours, and then wake-up early to stand around for three hours until his sensei showed up for that day's "training"2. Between the lack of sleep and the three hours of boredom, Naruto would have forgotten to even be mad at his "team" by lunchtime. However, this particular Naruto, in this particular universe, had unfortunately (for those who pissed him off anyway) reached his limit. And so Uzumaki Naruto snapped. Or maybe he broke he knew he heard some kind of sound in his head but he wasn't sure if it was a snap or a break. Either way, it was at that point that Uzumaki Naruto did something most people had thought less likely than Jiraiya taking a vow of celibacy. He gave up. He gave up on ever being Hokage, on making the villagers respect him, on winning the fair (I think I just threw-up a little) Sakura3, on ever being more than the village pariah, and on ever finding happiness. Now, unknown to most people, Naruto had given up in the past, though usually someone came along (usually Iruka or the Hokage) and cheered him up. Even the few times when this hadn't happened, a quick walk around town, ending with some random act of kindness, had always returned him to his usual hyper self. This time however, he was tied to a log in the middle of nowhere with nothing but his own depressing thoughts to listen to and lacking the necessary give a damn to work himself free. This had the effect of forcing the orange prankster to think. This was something he strove to avoid doing because left alone with his thoughts for too long, Naruto inevitably put himself in an angst spiral, something he refused to allow himself to do mainly because after several years of being compared to Uchiha Sasuke, Rookie of the Year and Lord of the Emos4, it made him physically ill to do anything at all like the bastard. 'Which is probably why I suck and no one likes me and my senseis refuse to train me.' Ladies and Gentleman, this is your captain speaking, we have now entered an angst spiral, we recommend getting away from all sharp objects as you may be overcome by the urge to slit your wrists.

'I can't believe they left me. Ah, who am I kidding, I'm lucky they didn't piss on me while they had me tied up. I should have known not to get my hopes up. You always hear ninja talk about how their original teams were like their family or something. Of course, I should have known no one would ever want to be related to the demon. That bastard Sasuke, acting so cool but he still got his ass kicked. And Sakura, she's supposed to be the smartest kunoichi in our year but all she can think about is Sasuke, Sasuke, Sasuke. If I had died she wouldn't have even batted an eye. Hell, I'm pretty sure she would have killed me to save Sasuke if Kakashi had given her a little more time to get over the shock. Oh, and that fucker. I bet he'll be like all the rest; he'll fawn all over Sasuke and leave me to rot. I bet he won't teach me anything to make sure I die on a mission, and then they'll all laugh at about it and the villagers will throw a big festival and make Sasuke the Hokage.'5

Ah, the wonders of the human heart. How quickly a sea of sorrow can freeze into cold, black hatred. And as we all know, when Naruto gets angry one of two thinks occur. He either gives a monologue and beats some sense into the source of his anger or brings much woe down upon the one who caused the anger. And Mr. Uzumaki is not in a chatty mood right now.

'I'll show them, I'll show them all just how strong I can be. I'm through waiting for people to respect me, to like me, to actually give a damn whether I live or die. If they won't recognize me on their own then I'll just make them. I'll become so powerful they'll have no choice but to acknowledge me. Then when they ask me, no beg me to be Hokage, I'll tell them to stick it up their asses.

Reinvigorated by his new mission in life, "Make Konoha Suck It", Naruto set to work freeing himself. Thirty minutes later, Naruto set out resolutely to begin working on his new goal. He got all of five steps before he realized he had no idea how to get started, a massive improvement over the quarter mile and fifty "Dattebayo's" it normally would have taken. Deflating like a balloon, Naruto fell limply to the ground and against odds the boys over in statistics would have placed at two and one-third miracles, he began to think, seriously think, for the second time that day.

"Okay, how do I get stronger? Let's see, Iruka-sensei said something about this once I think. It was something like the basic building blocks of a good shinobi are a strong body, a sharp mind, let's see, oh yeah big chakra reserves and um, oh yeah, good chakra control. So what do I have? I'm slower than a lot of the guys in my class were, but I was one of the stronger ones. Of course, I hardly ever hit anyone so I guess my taijutsu form needs work. I sucked at book work so I guess my mind needs work. I've never run out of chakra so my reserves are probably good for now, but I never was able to do that leaf floating trick Iruka-sensei showed us. So I need to work on my speed, my taijutsu form, my mind, and my chakra control. Man, I really suck.' Ladies and gentlemen do not be alarmed, the apocalypse is not occurring, I repeat the apocalypse is not occurring.

'How am I even going to fix all this? I've got the leaf thing for my control but I've got no idea what I'm going to do for speed and form 'cause my normal training sure ain't working. And how am I going to work on my mind anyway? I've got no idea what to do except, ah no, I can't do that. It would suck so much and they'll probably throw me right out and I don't really have any choice do I? Fuck damn it.'

For any who might be confused by the inner dialogue, Naruto has just remembered a conversation he had overheard once. A girl had asked Sakura how she got so smart. The pinkette had told the girl, Yuri-something or other, that she spent a lot of time reading about things that were coming up in class or had only been glanced over quickly. Ino had then interjected with a bookworm comment and the third cat fight of the day had started.6 The important thing, however, was that Sakura had gained much of her knowledge from the library, which meant Naruto would have to go there himself. He had never been inside before, but he got the feeling that the place was going to be boring as hell. Heaving a sigh that spoke of great personal suffering, Naruto climbed to his feet and trudged off towards his apartment.

"Today officially sucks. That makes 14 plus years straight now." Such were the thoughts of Uzumaki Naruto as he meandered his way through the streets of Konoha after his first day as a shinobi in the service of the village. Today, after waking up early to wait three hours for his sensei in the company of two people who hated him and who he wasn't too overly fond of, he had served his village by weeding some old biddy's garden. An old biddy who had criticized him while she damn near stuffed cookies and tea down Sasuke and Sakura's throats. So yeah, not a good day by any measure. The only good thing about this day was the fact that it fanned the flames of Naruto's rage and hatred back into a towering inferno and insuring he went through with his plan with yesterday, which at this point consisted of

Step 1: Go to library

Step 2: Learn how to get stronger

Step 3: Get stronger

Step 4: Make Konoha suck it

It may not have been the most inspired plan but it was his plan and he was sticking with it. Naruto is just loyal like that. So now our young hero is making his way to the Konoha Library in order to gain the knowledge required to learn the skills needed to force much sucking upon Konoha.7 Bracing himself for the mind numbing horrors before him, our young hero bravely opened the door and entered the Konoha Library. He was promptly hurled back through the door and into the street a few moments later followed by several blank scrolls, a stapler, a few paper weights, and a handful of letter openers. Picking himself up, the young shinobi returned fire with the most imaginative curses in his repertoire, which outstripped most sailors by at least an order of magnitude. Unfortunately, so caught up was he in his ranting, he failed to see the rather heavy tome flying through the air and directly into his face. Recovering from the shock of the hit, Naruto grabbed the book and prepared to take out a window with it when he happened to notice the title "Shinobi Basics" printed on the front.8 Willing to accept whatever victory he could manage at this point, Naruto took his prize and ran back to his apartment before the librarians figured out they had actually thrown something of worth at him. Pausing a second, he performed a quick seal and with a shout of "Kage Bunshin No Jutsu" formed a few clones to grab up the rest of the supplies, because as far as the young street urchin was concerned free stuff was free stuff.

Once he was safely back at his apartment, Naruto dismissed his clones, flopped down on his beat up couch, and opened his prize to the table of contents.

"Alright, let's see physical conditioning, chakra control and expansion techniques, basic strategy, use of tools, basic seals, survival basics, basics of stealth, and seduction. Wait, SEDUCTION?!? What the hell would I need that for?" Deciding to answer his own question before anything else, Naruto flipped to the back of the book and began reading. This position did not change until half an hour and about fifty pages later, when the now blushing boy made a discovery, reading was actually alright. Sure it didn't measure up to actually going out and doing things, but it was still nowhere near as bad as he had suspected. He wondered why all the other kids in his academy class had been so against it. He then figured it was some scheme to keep him stupid and weak they had all concocted.9 But such things were unimportant at this point. No, all that mattered right now was devouring the knowledge before him. With an evil cackle that would have made Orochimaru request a paternity test, our hero dived back into his book, starting from the introduction and not stopping until he had finished seduction a second time.10

Several hours later, Naruto laid the book down and stretched his rather stiff joints. Finally achieving a series of rather satisfying cracks, the young Jinchuriki made his way to the kitchen to begin preparing his dinner, seven bowls of ramen in varying flavors. As he ran the somewhat murky tap water into the sole pot he owned for boiling water for instant ramen, the young blond made a list of everything he had found in the book. 'Okay, there weren't any taijutsu styles but now I at least know how to bring my speed up, but I need to look into this "nutrition" crap it was talking about. Aw hell, who am I kidding, if it'd make me taller I'd dress like Sasuke. Well, maybe I wouldn't go that far but still. Anyways, what else? Oh yeah, chakra control, that's right. Man it's gonna be so cool to walk on water. I bet Sasuke doesn't know how to do that… which means Kakashi will probably teach him just as soon as he finds out I can do it, damn. Fine then, I'll just hide how awesome I become 'til I know for sure I can beat down Sasuke. Alright, what else, I already knew that stealth stuff and all I got from survival was what mushrooms are safe to eat. That tool stuff looked cool but there all pretty expensive. Seduction was… hehehe. Oh yeah, there was all that strategy stuff but that just looked like planning pranks to me. No techniques though and that's what I really need if I want to kick Sasuke's emo ass.'

Naruto pondered over where he could get his hands on some kick ass techniques to beat Sasuke into the ground with as he set the water on to boil. He knew he wouldn't be able to return to the library, unless… 'I could always just break into the place, the book had some good strategies on infiltration and that's pretty much what this will be. It's gonna be a real pain dodging the patrols long enough to actually find anything in there. Hell, it'd probably be just as easy to sneak into Oji's office and steal the scroll again.' It took all of five seconds for this thought to really register in Naruto's head. After twenty minutes of planning and an encore of evil cackling, Naruto set off into the night.

It was another late night for Sarutobi Hiruzen, third Hokage of the Village Hidden in the Leaves. The aged Hokage worked tirelessly against his greatest foe, nay, the greatest foe of any Kage, paperwork. It was one of the most tedious parts of the job and also what a Kage spent most of their time doing. Heaving a sigh of utmost boredom, the old man paused momentarily in his seemingly never ending task. A moment later he heard a knock at his door.

"Enter." Upon receiving the permission, the door opened to reveal the Hokage's personal secretary. "Ah, Nanoa-chan I thought you had already left for the night.

"No Hokage-sama, I had a few things to take care of from the new genin teams," replied the rather "healthy" looking brunette. "Actually, I just finished up and came to check on you before I went home for the night."

"Ah, that's very kind of you Nanao-chan, but as you can see I still have quite a bit of work ahead of me tonight," Sarutobi said while motioning towards the piles of paperwork.

"Poor Hokage-sama," Nanao cooed as she moved further into the room. "You always have so much work to do; I don't think I've ever seen you relax."

"Y-Yes well, the Hokage's work is never done," the old man stuttered out while his secretary worked her way slowly, evenly sensually, towards him.

"You do so much for this village and yet no one ever does anything for you," she said as she slinked around the Hokage's massive desk. "I think it's about time someone did something for you," she was in his lap now "something to relieve all that tension," she purred. Then she breathed into his ear, "Show me your "chakra reserves" Big Daddy Saru." And that was it; the old Hokage suffered an S-class nosebleed and was out cold. Smirking, "Nanao" dropped the henge to reveal Naruto in full prank master mode. Quickly summoning a dozen Kage Bunshin, Naruto started issuing orders.

"Okay, you two clean up the old man and make it look like he just dozed off," he ordered. "Don't forget to get in his desk and get his copy of Icha Icha Paradise out, I want to make it look like he dozed off while reading it. The rest of you start copying the scroll."

The clones paused for a second before one of them asked, "What are we supposed to copy it onto?"

Pulling a scroll out of his pocket, Naruto tossed it to one of his clones saying, "Sorry about that. Here, the spare scrolls are in here." Unsealing the scrolls, the clones got to work. Pulling the Scroll of Forbidden Seals from its place, the unrolled it and began copying, a clone every few feet. While the rest of the clones were copying, the two setting up the scene had found something interesting.

"Huh, why does shibari sound familiar," queried one clone as he pulled out "The Comprehensive Guide to Shibari"?

"Who knows, we might as well take it though, there's so much dust on it I doubt the old man even remembers he has it," was his colleagues reply.

In short order, the clones had copied the scroll in its entirety. Taking stock of things, Naruto saw that they had used barely half of the scrolls he had brought and they still had a few hours before they needed to clear out. It was odd, as long as he didn't take the Forbidden Scroll out of this room and the old Hokage didn't wake up, no one would know he had been there and no one would check until the secretary came in in the morning. He also happened to notice a number of scrolls in a case off to the side. "Well, not like we have anything else to do. OK guys, everyone grab something that looks good and let's get to work." As the thirteen of them grabbed a scroll to copy, Naruto couldn't help but think of the wealth of knowledge and power he'd have after tonight. 'What a haul, what a haul.'

AN: This is my first try at this so any feedback would be appreciated.

1. Team here meaning "A group of backstabbing bastards who wouldn't piss on you if you caught fire."

2. Training being defined as watching Sasuke and Kakashi spar while being told he wasn't ready for any kind of training yet.

3. Of all the decisions he made before or hereafter, this was the best.

4. The duly appointed ruler of Emoland, where the rivers and lakes were filled with the black tears of the broken hearted (and the useless and dickless), and you can cut your wrists with a feather.

5. See folks, he really isn't that dense and oblivious, he was just deluding himself.

6. Too bad this isn't a high school fic or that would have been something to see… er read.

7. Yeah this is one of those plans that doesn't sound better no matter how many times you say it.

8. What can I say, Benten loves the kid. And I was too lazy to write a library scene.9.

9. Hate can make you more paranoid than all the pot needed to run Woodstock for two days.

10. Seduction had some very interesting diagrams and examples.