AN: For those wondering, no, I haven't been dead. I've done some work here and there, and published some things over on Spacebattles, but I want them to be more complete before I move them here. In the meantime, here's something I came up with after reading a Naruto fic, since it's been a year since I posted anything here.

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"...should give up on being ninja! This test was about teamwork from the start!"

Kakashi's words echoed inside of Naruto's mind, and something inside of him just broke. More words came out of the Jounin's mouth, but Naruto didn't really hear them. Why would he? The important part had already been made clear. His insane, out of the blue improvised graduation from the Academy by unconventional means was completely wiped out. His hopes, so recently raised, were smashed all over again.

Someone was lying to him, again.

A teacher had sabotaged his chances at becoming a ninja, again.

If even once he was out of the Academy (which apparently he was going to be sent back to again), those in authority over him were going to actively sabotage him…?

Slow, silent tears began to flow down Naruto's face; he didn't really care anymore if his former-teammates saw them. It's not like he'd be spending any more time with them after today.

Time passed, Sakura and Sasuke left.

More time passed; Kakashi returned and cut Naruto loose; the would-be genin didn't really hear them; Kakashi had already said what was most important. When the Jounin moved to touch him though, Naruto moved. Scattering three dozen shadow clones, Naruto fled into Konoha, dodging through the city until he was sure (or as sure as he could be) that nobody was following him, and he returned to his apartment.

Which wasn't really much to look at, either. Naruto didn't really care all that much about neatness, but it was absolutely depressing to realize that pretty much everything in his apartment didn't matter. Almost all he ate was cup ramen, which didn't require refrigeration, or anything except a pot, water, and a fire. His bed was crappy; the sleeping bag he had was pretty much just as serviceable, and all of his clothes were copies of the same orange jumpsuit, the only thing he'd been able to buy from the shopkeepers in Konoha.

Two would probably be enough.

It took Naruto all of five minutes to take everything he wanted from his apartment, and then he was gone.

He left the forehead-protector Iruka had given him in the middle of his table, a small note behind it.

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It took several hours for anybody to realize that Naruto had no intention of showing back up at the academy for a re-evaluation of his skills. From there, it only took a few minutes for the Hokage to be informed, who spent second locating Kakashi, then asking him what had happened.

It took Sarutobi nearly half an hour to realize just what had gone wrong; he had put a technical adult that had never overcome his childhood trauma (not to mention becoming a child-soldier at age six) in charge of a traumatized and ostracized orphan, neither of whom had any social skills to speak of.

Anything other than a catastrophe would have been a surprise.

Fortunately, Kakashi was an eminently capable tracker, and supernaturally intelligent dogs trained to help him with said tracking.

Unfortunately, Naruto knew Kage Bunshin and Henge. More 'Narutos' had left Konoha in the last few hours, via more different exit routes, than Kakashi had dogs to summon, or Sarutobi had trusted ANBU to spare.

Finding Naruto had just become Jiraiya's problem.

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"You knew Naruto pretty well?" Iruka asked as he sat down at the front counter of Ichiraku Ramen, a defeated look in his eyes.

"Knew?" Ichiraku Teuchi asked sharply, staring over at the depressed Chuunin.

"He left," Iruka said quitely, passing the note from Naruto over to the Ramen chef.

'I'm sorry I failed,' the note said, in Naruto's barely comprehensible scrawl, 'I'm going to try to find somewhere people won't lie all the time.'

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The first place Naruto tried living 'in' was the Capital of Fire Country. He didn't exactly live 'in' it; he didn't have any money, but he had survival training from the Academy, so he lived in the forests around the Capital, but he spent quite a bit of time looking for people he could trust in the city.

Unfortunately, it was full of Politicians, so he left.

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The second place Naruto tried living was amongst the monks in one of the mountain monasteries. Just a few months ago, he would have either left or been kicked out within a day; too loud, too fidgety, the very antithesis of the aescetic serenity the monks sought and taught. After Kakashi though, Naruto was no longer so loud or restless.

He left after two months. Naruto didn't want his hunger for a family, for friends, for people he could trust to be removed, he wanted it to be fulfilled. He may have lost his dream of being a ninja, but as he left the monastery, he decided he'd rather die than give up his dream of having a family.

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The third place Naruto tried living was amongst the Samurai. They, he found at least to be honest, but he also found almost all of them to be petty. Obsessed with social standing, slights, some kind of 'honor' that seemed more like 'popularity' to him, it drove Naruto nuts.

Three months later there was a minor bulletin posted, offering a reward for 'Ryokusabe Kenshiro,' a recruit who had deserted from the Fire Nation soldiery; the redhead was never found.

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The first time Naruto felt less alone after leaving Konoha, was after he'd spent six months as a half-dozen hired guards for a small merchant clan, the Otoro's. The matriarch of the family had suffered infertility, and only borne the head of the family one sickly child through a decade of trying; that son (Hikaru) had never become fully healthy, though he was quite intelligent enough to keep the family's books. When Naruto (known to the merchants as Akira, Sousuke, Kenichi, Ranma, Tetsuro, and Reika all at the same time) had been hired on as guards, Hikaru had just married.

Midori, the woman that Hikaru had somehow wooed, was in Naruto's opinion the prettiest woman he had ever seen, porcelain skin, graceful raven-black hair, rosy lips, and a demure personality. She doted upon Hikaru, who was humble enough to accept her aid whenever he needed to walk more than a few hundred feet at a time, and he in turn lavished her with affection, singing for his wife every night, and sharing everything he had with her.

It made Naruto's heart ache to watch them, and he wished that he'd had parents like that. Six months later, a celebration began amongst the trade caravan, word passing around swiftly that Midori had just discovered for certain that she was pregnant.

What made him feel welcome amongst them, was when each of his disguises was, in turn, invited to join them in celebrating the event, and given a cup of he good Sake.

"Thank you for your service," Hikaru said, looking each of them in the eye, "And please, ensure that you will watch over our child as diligently as you have us."

"I'll look after him like he's my own brother!" Naruto swore once.

"The baby is a girl," Midori said with a mischevious smile, one that made Naruto's heart flutter at her beauty.

"I'll look after her like she's my own sister!" Naruto then swore, something he did six times over by the time the night of celebration was over.

All of the other hired guards shared similar sentiments. All of the other guards put together did not put as much emphasis on that oath as Naruto did the first time.

By the sixth time he made it, the oath might as well have been cast by a decree of heaven.

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The first trouble that came after Naruto was hired was easy to deal with; a dozen inexperienced bandits thinking with their egos, believing that a trade caravan with just a dozen guards would clearly be easy prey. None of them even reached melee range before Naruto's (clumsy by ninja standard) thrown Kunai cut them down.

The second attack was much more serious, and came after Midori's pregnancy became known; thirty bandits, with a former genin missing-nin leading them. Hikaru had hired on a half-dozen more guards, but eighteen shouldn't have been anywhere near enough, had they all been 'normal' guards. As it was, by the time the bandits were all dead, three of Naruto's clone-bodies had been 'killed,' leaving Reika, Sousuke and Tetsuro.

All of the other guards had died, and the Missing Nin had made it away alive, if seriously injured. Four other members of the caravan were also injured, and two killed, but 'gratitude' was a weak word for the regard that half-hundred other civilians held Naruto's three surviving incarnations in after that. He received a bonus, they all smiled at him (or her, in Reika's case), and began to include him in activities in a way that he never had before.

Maybe, Naruto thought, this is what it feels like to have a family.