A young boy, no older than three, was running as fast as he could through the dark streets of Konoha's slums. There were about eight grown men trailing closely behind him, all twice his height and yelling various curses and insults. "Demon," they shouted. "Kyuubi," "bastard fox," and "monster."

The little boy couldn't understood why they were doing this, and why him? Many of the things the men said he didn't even understand and made no sense to him. Confused and lost, there was nothing he could do but to keep running.

As he approached a corner, he made a sharp turn into the nearest alley, hoping to fool them. He had no such luck, however, as it wasn't easy for a little kid to outsmart a group of full grown men.

"Damned Kyuubi...trying to escape, huh? Well," the man laughed, "looks like you only succeeded in cornering yourself."

"N-no, that's not—"

"Who do you think you are, burdening us with having to chase you down and search for you?!"

"N-n-no, wait—!"

CRACK.

The boy stumbled, clutching his bleeding head tightly whilst trying to steady himself with his other hand on the grime-covered wall.

"Che," another sneered, "Cocky brat! Who do you think ya are, ya fucking demonic shit?"

"Ahh!" The boy cried out as he was kicked into the wall. Ignoring the burning sensation in his abdomen and the bile rising in his throat, he attempted to stand again only to collapse when he tried to take a deep breath and was met with excruciating pain emanating from his chest. Clutching at his heart, he tried again, this time taking short rapid breaths so as to ease the pain.

"What," the man laughed, his filthy smile widening, "ya think we're done already? We're just gettin' started..."

The next few minutes the boy was faced with such intense pain like nothing he had ever before experienced in his life. This beating was by far the worst so far. Struggling to take a breath, he forced his eyes open, only to shut them again when blood dripped into his eyes. Shakily raising his hand, he wiped at his eyes and forehead. That's when he noticed it had gone dead silent. Unnerved by the stillness that seemed to swallow him whole, he tried to quiet his own breathing as he listened as carefully as he could.

Then he heard it. A cruel, sadistic laugh...

"We're not done yet..."

Naruto's screams could be heard all throughout Konoha, yet no one spared a glance. Anyone who might've cared was long since asleep, and all those awake were quietly laughing, enjoying his screams of pain like music to their ears...

After what felt like hours but was surely minutes, the men paused for a moment to watch as the boy's wounds healed like magic before their eyes. "It's almost like the brat wants us to keep goin'...the way he keeps on fixin' 'imself up like that..."

One of the larger, broader men pulled out a strange knife, along with a strip of paper with writing on it. Upon closer inspection, the little boy noticed that the two objects were connected by a thin, yet noticeably strong thread.

A shinobi might've recognized this for what it was—a kunai and an explosive tag—but this little boy was no shinobi...not yet.

The boy was curious as to what it would do, but when he considered his filthy blond hair, now caked with buckets of his own dried blood, his eyes now pinkish from the blood that had dripped into them, his bloody nose, and the trail of bile and thick blood oozing down his chin from his split lip...his previously yellowed shirt with the red swirl and his blue capris, now all dyed a deep, dark, blood red...the bile and blood splattered on the walls behind him and in the mud under his shoes...

Taking all of this in, the boy realized with terrifying dread that he really didn't want to know what it did, not anymore. He squinted his eyes closed as tight as he could and waited for the pain that was sure to follow. He was surprised, however, when it never came.

Tense, he carefully opened his eyes to take a peak and immediately his face was stricken with horror when he saw their wide, face-splitting grins.

They wanted him to watch.

He was soon engulfed with such immense pain that he didn't know left from right. He couldn't even think.

He lay in agony for what felt like as hours, the screams not stopping or slowing, not until his throat gave out, and still he continued to spasm and twitch as he were having a stroke. He probably was.

Eventually, like a gift from god, he faded into sweet, blissful unconsciousness.

If he could think straight, he probably would've made a wish...

"Please don't let me wake up."

Opening his eyes, he looked around, taking in his surroundings. It looked like a sewer.

That's when suddenly realized with shocking clarity, that all his wounds had mysteriously disappeared and he now found himself wearing clean clothing.

He reached up and ruffled his hair and trailed his fingers over his face, and—nothing. Not even a speck of dirt, not a drop of blood.

Unsure, and more confused than he had ever been in his life, he began to aimlessly wander around, searching for any form of life...anything to reassure himself that he was not in fact in the afterlife, and that the afterlife wasn't some awful sewer that smelled like old blood and wet dog. Finally, he reached a large opening and entered, only to be met face to face with an enormous menacing fox with burning red eyes that glared down at him as if he were it's next meal. The terrifying beast bore nine tails that dragged slowly behind him.

From the fox the boy felt an immense pressure not unlike what he had felt from the angry men—killing intent, he was sure of it. However, upon seeing the boy, the fox almost seemed to soften his gaze, looking at the boy with almost pity in his eyes.

"Wh-who are you? Where am I? Wh-what am I doing here? Wh-why—"

"Silence, kit," the fox ordered. Immediately he shut him mouth. "I am the great Kyuubi no Kitsune, and right now you are inside your mind. You are here because those rotten villagers nearly blew you up. You would have died, in fact, had I not pulled you in here. In fact, I'm healing you as we speak. After all," he scoffed, "if you die, I die. Now, any more questions, kit?"

"Umm...just one."

"Go on."

"What's a kooby no kit soonay?"

...timeskip...

It's been four years since Naruto had found out about the Kyuubi. The fox had explained everything to him—including his true parentage and what Madara had done, forcing the Kyuubi to attack the village. As Naruto found out, the Kyuubi had actually done nothing wrong. In fact it was Madara who had used his sharingan to take control of the Kyuubi's mind and force him to attack Konoha. According to Kyuubi, when he'd finally come to, the villagers had been attacking him and he'd had no choice but to fight back to defend himself. In fact, he was actually a really nice and caring guy (for a giant chakra beast, that is). He even offered to train Naruto—which Naruto of course agreed to. Naruto would often spend his days eating, reading, and training—though most of his training took place during the night when he was sleeping and would escape to his mind to train and spend time with his resident fox.

Over time, Naruto had also developed a sort of mask. Whenever he felt particularly upset or lonely or depressed, he would put on a happy face, stretch his smile as wide as he could, and laugh. Make a fool of himself. Because of this, he came to be seen as a "happy-go-lucky idiot," as he had once heard a villager call him. Thanks to this, he also found that putting up this facade had over time made the villagers less wary of him, and, in turn, they gradually began to leave him alone. Of course he was still glared at and sneered at wherever he went, but he had gotten so used to it at this point that he often ceased to notice when they did. (Doesn't mean it didn't still bother him—it did.)

But enough of that, let's talk about the academy. Thanks to Kyuubi's unparalleled training, Naruto had quickly surpassed Genin level. By now, he could probably be considered high Chuunin, if not low Jonin. Soon enough, if he continued at the pace he was at, he'd be strong enough to rival even the three legendary Sannin. Maybe someday, he'd even surpass the Hokage! But we're getting off track.

Naruto by now was far stronger than any of the other students at the academy, but at this point there was no way he was going to drop his mask now. He wanted to hold onto it just a little longer, until he was a little stronger, so that he wouldn't have to worry about people turning on him if they found out how he really was. As a dim-witted, happy-go-lucky academy student he wasn't a threat. But a cold-blooded prodigy? They'd turn on him in a heartbeat—no way could they let the demon brat get any stronger than he already was. So, no, he was going to hold onto this mask a little longer, thank you very much—at least until graduation, at the very least, if not after the chuunin exams, maybe.

But that's not important right now, the chuunin exams are still a long while away (graduation, though, is a hell of a lot closer).

Thanks to his dobe facade, Naruto was barely passing every class he was in. On exams, he filled in just enough to pass and then spent the remainder of the time mentally training with Kyuubi whilst he outwardly feigned sleep. As a bonus, and perhaps a product of boredom, he had fabricated this insane crush on probably the most outrageous girl in his class, a civilian-born bookworm with a loud voice, shocking pink hair, and an even more outrageous temper. (Part of the reason he chose her, he'll admit, was because of her insane fangirl crush on Sasuke I'm-a-grumpy-piece-of-shit-but-for-some-reason-all-the-girls-in-this-school-love-me Uchiha—if she was so obsessed with him, he didn't have to worry about her suddenly "returning" his "feelings"—ugh.)

The only person, besides the Kyuubi and Naruto himself, who knew about their secret coaching and mind-training, was the Hokage—who actually approved, once Naruto had gotten the chance to explain.

But besides the Kyuubi and the Hokage, Naruto didn't have much anybody else. He had developed a bit of a bond with his teacher Iruka-sensei, but even he didn't know everything; he still saw Naruto as this innocent, happy-go-lucky kid. Naruto almost wished that were true.

But honestly, Naruto didn't mind the lack of friends—he had Kyuubi, and believe it or not but over the years, the two of them had grown as close as brothers. Naruto even developed an original jutsu just for Kyuubi where he would create a sort-of shadow clone that Kyuubi could then possess and reshape to look like a smaller version of himself—albeit in public, he tended to shape it to look more like a regular one-tailed fox, if a bit tall. (When Naruto had first tried it, the two of them had spent hours just playing around like children, rolling in the grass, playing tag, and just smelling the air—it had been a long time since Kyuubi had smelt anything other than old, dried blood and mildew. In those times, it was almost like the Kyuubi wasn't actually sealed inside Naruto's stomach, and they could act like normal—just two brothers hanging out together and being happy.

Except, they're not normal. And once the Council caught wind of Naruto's true abilities, his true intelligence and power, they threw a fit and demanded to speak to the Hokage. It took a while, but eventually the Hokage got them to calm down and the meeting was adjourned, but only once they'd settled on a compromise: Naruto could go on continuing to act like a normal academy student, but in his spare time he was to act as a member of the ANBU and go on confidential missions for the Hokage and the Council. That was about three years ago.

(Traditionally, Konoha shinobi are not selected as ANBU until they are at least thirteen years of age, the only exception being Itachi at age eleven, but obviously the Council couldn't care less about child-labor laws when it came to the "demon child," and so Naruto officially beat Itachi's record by joining the ANBU at the ripe age of nine.)

In no time at all, Naruto quickly gained a reputation for himself for being silent as the night and completely devoid of mercy. He completed his missions in record time, often leaving no survivors. Being the only member of the ANBU to sport a fox themed mask since the attack of the nine-tails nearly a decade previous, he soon became known as "The Merciless Fox Child of the ANBU." (The "child" was meant as a jibe because of his height; what they didn't know was that technically he actually was a child.)

Originally nothing more than a job and a way of taking out his frustrations with the villagers, Naruto's role in the ANBU soon came to mean so much more. It didn't take long for him to rise through the ranks, and now Naruto stands as an honorary Captain of the ANBU with a three-man cell under his command. And believe it or not, this is only the beginning...

To be continued...

End of Prologue.

Ja ne!

EDITED AND REVISED 1/31/2018.