Ch 1: Foundations of Greatness

"Yondaime-sama!" The mortally injured jonin gasped out, a deep gash ran diagonally across his torso, " The Kyuubi is three miles from the wall, and approaching fa..." Suddenly, the warrior's eyes glazed over and he dropped dead where he stood. Minato had to choke back bitter tears, and ignore the tightness behind his ribs caused by the loss of his comrade in favor of finishing his final seal. He was just putting on the finishing touches on the mental enhancement unit of the labyrinth like diagram.

The grieving blonde compressed the enormous seal onto his hand and Hiraishined to his newborn son who was just minutes old. Minato could already tell that the boy in his arms would look exactly like himself. The infant was the Hokage's son, but would nonetheless have a tough life ahead. The Namikaze clan head knew very well that jinchuuriki never had easy lives.

The blonde man took his son to the battlefield , knowing that time was not a plentiful resource, he hastily summoned Gamabunta, the boss of the toad race.

"Minato-sama what are your orders?" The skyscraper of a toad bellowed. Minato, eager to halt the massacre of his people, the well respected man gave a nearly insurmountable task to his faithful companion.

"Please hold the kyuubi for five seconds."

"Consider it done Minato-sama." The gargantuan beast roared. Using all his muscle, and all the chakra in his chakra coils, Gamabunta struggled to subdue the beast.

"Yondaime-sama is going to defeat the Kyuubi!" a young chunin cried out in joy. Shouts of rejoice spread like a shockwave through the crowd of surviving shinobi. Soon they were all cheering for the strongest ninja in the elemental nations.

"Foolish human scum they actually think that a mere human can – wait, what in the world is that light?" At that very instant the Yondaime activated layer one of the modified reaper death seal: reaping of the soul. Then the spirit of the Kyuubi was wrapped in phosphorescent chains and ripped out of it's body. Immediately layer two was activated: sealing of the sacrifice. Naruto's frail little body rose out of the arms of the Yondaime and a bright light came out of his navel. Then everyone within ten miles saw a massive red sea of chakra invade the barely formed chakra coils of little baby Naruto. The child screamed in pain as his chakra coils were ripped to shreds and reformed repeatedly.

By the time this process was over the village had a dead Hokage, an orphaned newborn with a giant social stigma and kage level chakra reserves, and a very weary re-instated Third Hokage.

Six years later...

Six year old Naruto Uzumaki was running across the rooftops at full speed, running away from ANBU, laughing his full head off. Now normally as such high ranking ninja, the ANBU black ops would not be worrying themselves with such a small child, unless of course said small child had dyed the entirety of the black ops headquarter neon pink.

"You won't get away with this!" screamed one of the neon pink ANBU.

Naruto grinned over his shoulder "Yeah, sure I won't." Then the prankster king just faded away.

"Uzumaki! you're late on you're first day back to school." nagged an irate Iruka

"Sorry Iruka sensei" the orange wonder scratched his head in feigned embarrassment

"Detention!" and the scarred chunin's words were law. The rest of the day was spent normally, learning about how one dead guy fought another blah blah blah.

Matters in the council room of the Hokage tower however were not so tranquil...

"Hokage sama we have to kill the de- Uzumaki brat!" the aged Kage rubbed his temples in frustration, how often did the council call for his death? Once a meeting?

"Alright what is the reason this time?"

"He turned the entire ANBU headquarters neon pink! This is surely a direct attack against village security."

"Well, there is the fact that Naruto manages to pull off an insane prank around once a meeting." the Hokage conceded to himself. "Naruto is quite the trickster, and has no respect for authority. He pulled off all sorts of pranks, ranging from painting elite ninjas pink to that porcelain lobster fiasco" The Hokage nearly shuddered when he thought about it. He was glad for his reaction control. After all, he still had the council to deal with.

"If a six year old can infiltrate and desecrate the ANBU headquarters without even getting caught, it is the fault of ANBU for their lax behavior." the god of shinobi reprimanded deftly.

"He's not a six year old he's the-" the boisterous councilman was silenced by a cold glare from the hokage accompanied by a huge spike of killing intent that made him wet his pants.

"He is a loyal citizen of Konoha, albeit misguided, but loyal nonetheless." a malevolent aura was palpable in the air and the Hokage's eyes were radiating an intense blue light. The imprudent council member had fainted from shock , and would probably need some counseling from seeing a kind old man turn into a bloodthirsty demon in the blink of an eye. The rest of the council was just then reminded that the man running this village was not some senile old fool, but a powerful shinobi not to be taken lightly.

As the Hokage and his escort went back to the office, Raido had been meaning to ask a question.

"Was it really necessary to use such a powerful intimidation technique on that idiot?"

"No, I just wanted the council off my back for a while" chuckled the Hokage. "By the way, could you fetch Naruto for me I need to rip him a new one."

"Alright, for detention today you are going to learn how to focus. You will do this by making a leaf stick to your head with chakra." Naruto murmured along with Shikamaru ,Choji ,and Kiba but still preformed the exercise.

At first everything went normally, everyone's leaf fell from their heads. But, the second time was far different. Three ninjas in training had the same result, the leaf still fell off. Naruto however, actually focused on the exercise. His result was bizarre to say the least. The leaf started to vibrate rapidly, and was shot off faster than the eyes of the trained chunin could see. His headband was cut diagonally on the right side and a trickle of blood oozed from his temple, and there was a demolished door behind him.

"Iruka sensei are you okay? I'm so sorry." Naruto said with a worried face he knew that he was the cause of the chunin's bleeding and was worried if the instructor would hate him for it. Iruka waved him off. Saying it was fine. An hour of monotonous practice later the boys were dismissed from their detention.

"Naruto, you stay here." ordered Iruka. Naruto crept toward his teacher's desk. "Could you do that leaf trick again, but outside this time?" The boy nodded slowly, dumbfounded.

In the academy training ground Naruto was holding the leaf this time in his hand about ten feet from the tree "Okay Naruto, try to cut a branch with that trick you just pulled off, but put the leaf on your hand this time. The Yondaime's son then stood, palm facing the sky, hand above his head preparing to gather chakra, when the wind blew the leaf away. With an exasperated sigh he got another leaf assumed the same position and focused all the chakra that he could into the small mass of the leaf, and tried to guide it toward the tree. He succeeded, but not in the way he originally thought. The leaf cut the branch of the young pine, as well as all the others including a sizable portion of the trunk leaving only a small skinny stump barely half a foot high where the tree used to be, with a circular pile of sawdust around it. The two ecstatic ninja would have celebrated with ramen but they were swiftly interrupted with a poof of smoke.

"Naruto-san the Hokage requests your presence immediately." Naruto cringed

"See you later Iruka-sensei." Naruto said with true cheer in his voice

"How about we get ramen after school tomorrow?"

"Sure Iruka-sensei!" the ramen addict gleefully replied.

"Hold on." Raido said in a bored monotone voice, perfectly hiding his anticipation of what was to come. As soon as the Hokage's assistant put is hand on Naruto's shoulder, the world dissapeared from Naruto's eyes as he was sucked into a black abyss. He could feel his body stretching across space and time. Then suddenly, his body snapped back together and he was in the Hokage's office. Although, the location couldn't have mattered less to a shunshin sick Naruto. With bleary eyes he stumbled into the chair nearest to him.

Sarutobi looked questioningly at his most loyal guard. Raido, on the other hand, could barely contain his laughter, after all, he hadn't done that in such a long time.

"Well, now you know why no one uses the shunshin in battle" the Hokage said, slightly embarrassed "Now, on to business, WHY IN THE WORLD WOULD YOU DYE ANBU HEADQUATERS PINK!?"

"I thought it would be funny." Naruto said in a small, but still dazed voice, the villiage's strongest ninja eyed the boy carefully. Then, he finally broke under the pressure. "A week ago, when I was getting beat up by the villagers I saw ANBU standing over by the side and watched me get beat up a little bit, and then after ten minutes they finally stepped in to help, so I decided to pay them back for the hesitation by dyeing the headquarters pink." reminisced Naruto, with a grin a mile wide. "And, I thought it would be funny."

As the Hokage looked out the window behind him, and meditated on the shameful conduct of his village. On top of resolving to put Kakashi on Naruto's watch duty from now on, he decided something that he knew would send Naruto reeling.

"Naruto, If you were a ninja this act would be more severely punished, but since you are only a child, you will no longer be allowed to prank the village for a year." when he looked back he saw Naruto in the corner of his office sulking with a visible depression. "But, if you do not prank the village within that year, I will give you a very special gift on your birthday." The blond haired boy brightened up considerably after that, and left the office with a bright smile on his face, completely ignoring the glares of the villagers.

Hiraishin: Instant teleportation techinque invented by the Yondaime