Hello every one... For those of you reading my work for the first time, Welcome :-D... For those who have read my stories, Welcome back! Some important background information:

*Naruto is ten years old

* He joined the academy when he was 6 instead of the normal 8 because the Third thought Naruto would be treated better in there rather than in a civilian school. The poor dreamer :-)

*According to the deal he made with the third, Naruto would be eligible to take the graduation exam from this year, if he can manage the academy jutsu.

EDIT: 2nd DEC 2012- It has been brought to my attention that I have been mis spelling Sarutobi's first name as Hizuren instead of Hiruzen. Since I am way too lazy and short on time, please let this slide. In the future chapters I'll try to correct this mistake.

Chapter 1: A Leaf Breaks From The Tree

The streets of Konoha were empty as its citizens had retreated to their homes for the night. The moon shone brightly on the village as a lone shadow streaked across the rooftops. The shadow was too small for a grown ninja, yet the shadow was moving with a level of stealth that would have made a chuunin proud. The shadow belonged to a young boy by the name of Uzumaki Naruto.

Naruto was pissed. He knew that expecting any sort of fairness from the people around him was a bit too foolish of him, but what happened today had just been ridiculous. There was an academy teacher that took classes when Iruka-sensei wasn't around. Today, his favorite sensei had been on leave and so the man had taken charge of their classes. He had paired Naruto against that cold Uchiha bastard again for a No-holds-barred match. He had smirked that Naruto could use the practice if he intended to go for the Graduation exam. Naruto knew that the teacher did that on purpose so he would lose and get humiliated, but this time Naruto had been prepared. Who cares if he had used less-than-honorable means to defeat the Uchiha? They were ninjas, dammit! Ninja are supposed to be masters of deception and subtr- subteru-suberterfuge? Or whatever, he fumed. Instead of praise, he had been yelled at and sent home. Even most of his classmates had bad-mouthed him. The fan girls had hit him for daring to singe their hero's hair and eyebrows. They had looked at him with those cold and hateful eyes. It had hurt. Naruto had not wasted his time at his home. After spending some well-deserved time yelling curses and screaming about injustice, he had sat down to plot his revenge. He chuckled. The teacher would never know what hit him. Naruto's face was home to an evil smile as he bounded away to his destination. He grinned as he remembered the spar.

-flashback-

Naruto groaned as he heard the teacher pair him up with the bastard. He heard others sniggering as they realized that they were going to get free entertainment. As he walked into the middle of the training area, he heard his crush asking why the oh-so-cool prodigy had to be paired up with the bottom of the class. He didn't show it, but it hurt.

Naruto tried hard not to smirk. He had known this would happen as soon as Iruka sensei had announced yesterday that he would be on leave today and told the class that he had arranged a replacement. He had known who the replacement was going to be.

He felt the tags he had bribed Chouji to buy for him. They were expensive, but they were going to be worth it when the haughty Uchiha ate dust at the end of the spar. He smirked as he took a stance. The dark haired boy opposite him seemed to regard him with indifference, as if Naruto was just a minor inconvenience he just had to swat away. Naruto's hands stiffened. It was this attitude that stopped Naruto from approaching the Uchiha, even though he knew that the boy was as lonely as him. Naruto had noticed that the boy was hurting just like himself. Many a times he had come across the last uchiha sitting alone on the river's bank. If only he wasn't such a haughty bastard, he and Naruto could be each other's support. Naruto shook these thoughts away as he made a plan.

All around the training room, people waited for the genius to pound the dead last into the ground. Both boys started circling each other. Just like Naruto had predicted, the last Uchiha took every step to counter Naruto's movement. Naruto resisted the urge to laugh out loud. He began his trap.

"Oye loser! I'll take you down without even laying my hands on you." He yelled loudly. He received the response he had expected. His classmates jeered as the fan girls screamed at him. His opponent merely smirked.

"Not even in a thousand years, dobe." Sasuke threw back at him.

Naruto stumbled and fell down. Everyone laughed as Sasuke gestured for him to get up. Naruto smirked inwardly. He had counted on the bastard not attacking him while he was down. He would deem it unnecessary. Why bother, when he thought he could do it with Naruto standing and alert? Naruto jumped and started to circle again. The Uchiha mirrored his movement. Naruto stopped as the bastard reached the spot where he had 'fallen'. He grinned his prankster smile.

His opponent betrayed no emotion on his face, but he was suddenly wary. You did not study in the same class as the blonde and not recognize that grin. Sasuke decided that he needed to end it before the fool tried anything. He began the seals for his jutsu. Others who recognized the seals smirked. Sasuke frowned as the blonde smirked too. He tensed as the blonde spoke.

"Boom."

Everyone jumped as the raven haired boy disappeared in an explosion. Everyone stared in silence as the flash from the explosion faded and revealed a smoking figure of Sasuke Uchiha on the ground. All except Naruto, who was laughing his head off.

It all went downhill from there.

-End flashback-

Naruto reached the house to which he had followed his teacher in the evening. The house was above the shops on the side of one of Konoha's smaller roads. The light was still on inside the room. Naruto peeked cautiously from the open window. The man was sitting at the table, bent over scrolls. Naruto was surprised. He had expected his teacher to be asleep by now. It was almost midnight. This would be trickier than he thought. Instead of inside the room, he would have to settle for outside, or at the window. It would drastically reduce the blast zone. Naruto bit back a chuckle because he knew that to be caught now would be a crying shame. He quietly and quickly started working on his trap.

After a few quiet minutes, he jumped back to check his trap. It wouldn't be visible from inside the room. The trap's trigger wire ran under the window sill. All someone would have to do was to grip the windowsill and their fingertips would trigger the trap. Naruto took a few pebbles out of his pockets, took aim and tossed them at the wall below the window. From his hiding spot, he saw his teacher turn to look towards the window, alert. His teacher grabbed a kunai and moved towards the window. He glanced outside, his kunai held up to defend against any projectiles. Satisfied, He turned and started to walk back to his table.

Naruto frowned. This man had not set off the trap. Naruto would have to try again. He threw a few more pebbles, but this time he aimed at the wall under the window sill so it would sound like someone was hiding below the window. Naruto grinned as his plan worked. The ninja jumped back to the window and in a quick movement, grabbed the window sill and bent outwards to look under it. His eyes were met by darkness, but his ears heard a distinctive snap. Suddenly, three balloons swung at him, each had a smoking low grade exploding tag. His awkward position didn't allow him to dodge as the balloons exploded and rained orange goo like substance all over the place. His upper body that was outside his window took most of the splatter.

He heard laughter and looked across the road, on the opposite roof, to see Naruto pointing and laughing at him. He was rolling on the roof, full of mirth.

"SERVES YOU RIGHT FOR BEING AN UNFAIR JACKASS-DATTEBAYO! HAHAHA HAHA." Naruto yelled between guffaws. He turned, gave his teacher the finger and jumped away before the (now) orange colored ninja could catch him. He turned towards his apartment building and ran.

"YOU LITTLE PIECE OF SHIT." His teacher screamed, orange color dripping from his exposed chest, neck and face as he leaned out of his window. "I'LL GET YOU FOR THIS..". He grabbed his weapon pouch and jumped out to follow the retreating shadow on the rooftops. Naruto turned and saw that he was being pursued. Going home was not advisable, he decided.

Naruto decided to try evasive tactics. He started to stick to the shadows and took sharp turns into dark alleys, rapidly changing directions while inside the shadows. He soon found out that it wasn't doing any good and that the chuunin was slowly gaining on him. Naruto decided that desperate times called for desperate measures.

Naruto ran towards the forest, hoping his teacher wouldn't want to follow him into the dark woods in the night. He was disappointed when he turned to saw the angry man gaining on him. He upped his speed even though he knew that he couldn't hope to outrun the chuunin behind him. He saw the big sign of the place he had heard the other shinobi call "The Forest of Death". He didn't want to go in there, seeing as even some of the ninja spoke of it in fear. This little moment of hesitation was all the ninja chasing him needed to close the gap between them. Naruto was about to dash left when he felt a sharp kick to the back of his spine that sent him flying into the boundary of the infamous training ground.

Naruto bounced off the huge steel fence and slammed to the ground. He tried to jump back up, but failed. The kick and his fast journey from the fence to the ground had knocked the wind out of him. He breathed heavily as his teacher landed a small distance from him.

"You little demon, too long you have been allowed to continue to torment us." Naruto heard his teacher speak, satisfaction oozing out of every syllable. "It is time that the mistake is corrected." the man sneered as he withdrew a handful of shuriken and hurled them at Naruto. Naruto screamed as the Shuriken pierced his flesh. He fell to the ground, his wounds bleeding.

Naruto was beginning to feel scared. His prank may have been a bit too much, but the man wouldn't kill him for that, would he? Naruto tried to scamper to his feet but was rewarded with bone crunching kick to the side of the head. His head exploded with pain. The teacher wasn't in-charge of taijutsu for nothing. His attacks hurt like other attacks had never before. He tumbled across the ground to a tree. He slammed into it and lay on the ground, grunting in pain.

"You will pay for all of your sins; for ruining our lives." Naruto heard the man speak. He was seriously over reacting to a prank.

"The color will wash off after a bath." Naruto gasped through the pain.

"You little fool. Trying to play innocent? It will not work on me. You will pay for all the lives you have taken, including my father's." The chuunin spoke as he made hand seals and shot out a fire jutsu. Naruto barely rolled out of the fire attack and felt the scalding hot air on his neck as he gasped for air.

"I never killed anybody- dattebayo!" Naruto replied, baffled at the response his prank had invited from his teacher. It was not unnatural for him to be despised and shunned. He had known before his prank that it would cause him to get a few bruises. But this was way beyond anything he had imagined. He was really beginning to fear for his life. Ninja using jutsu on academy students was unheard of.

"Of course you have, you demon!" the ninja spat back, "Just because you play the fool doesn't mean you are innocent. I'll just kill you now and avenge my father." he laughed.

"You will be punished for murder. Jiji-Hokage will punish you." Naruto said trying to talk his way out of this situation. The ninja was getting more and more scary.

The ninja laughed. Naruto felt hair rising on his neck. He had a premonition that something life changing was about to happen.

"No, you little brat. I will be heralded as a hero for killing the demon. Even the Hokage wouldn't be able to go against the people. He is far too soft for that." The man sneered. "He may put me on suspension, but I will go down in history as a legend. In a few years my name will be taught in the academy." He laughed and launched another fire attack at Naruto, only this was larger and was visible above the trees. Naruto couldn't dodge properly and curled into a ball to protect himself. The hot attack burned his skin as he tried to scream. The pain he felt threatened to rob him of his mind. He couldn't even scream as the fire engulfed him. He curled tighter, reducing the part of his body exposed to the attack. His tormenter laughed as he shivered on the ground. He couldn't feel his hands anymore. He had used them to shield is head from the fire. He couldn't even move to glance at them. Every movement was like he was being pricked by a thousand white hot needles. His teacher didn't attack for a few more seconds, then he kicked Naruto into a tree on the other side.

"How can you become a legend by killing a kid like me?" Naruto asked, trying to buy time before he figured out what to do.

"Haven't you wondered why you are hated so much, demon?" the man laughed.

This made Naruto push back the pain and pay attention.

"Should I tell you?" He mocked. "I guess it is fitting that you should know before you die, even though it is against the special law that forbids you from ever knowing it."

Naruto raised his head and looked at his teacher. He had always wondered about that. Why did all the people hate him so much? Even before he had started playing pranks. In fact, he had started playing pranks so at least when the villagers would shout at him or glare at him, he would know why. Now his teacher was telling him that it was a secret and there was a law to stop people from telling him about it? Surely it couldn't be as bad as to make people wish for his death and celebrate his death. The ninja looked down at the boy and smiled a horrible smile.

"You are the Nine Tailed demon fox, you piece of shit."

Whatever Naruto had expected this wasn't it. "Huh-?" he said. His surprise even managed to dull the pain. "But, the Kyuubi is dead. The kyuubi was killed by the Fourth Hokage. Iruka-sensei taught it in class."

"No, you fool. He couldn't kill it, so he sealed it in human form. YOU!" the ninja laughed again. "The Third Hokage took pity on you and let you live. He may have forgiven you, but the rest of us haven't. Even your precious Iruka-sensei hates you. He was orphaned in the attack; before his very eyes, both his parents took injuries from you that killed them. He wound up alone because of you. He tries, but he cannot bring himself to forgive you. Like him, there are countless others who wish for your end. That is why you will never be accepted by anyone in this village. Your dream that you shout about all day, the one where you will become Hokage? It is never going to happen. All of the village hates you. You will never be Hokage. You should just die and leave this village in peace." He started making hand seals and started to move closer to Naruto."DIE DEMON!"

Naruto tried to crawl away, but he knew that he would not be able to get away this time. His mind was in shambles. Was the ninja telling the truth? If he was, it would explain the villager's treatment of him all his life, but he couldn't remember anything about attacking the village. He looked up right as the ninja was about to blow fire from his mouth and end Naruto's small existence. Try as he might, Naruto couldn't bring himself to close his eyes and wait for his end. A small voice in his mind said that it would be the act of a coward. Naruto stiffened. He may be a lot of things, but he was not a coward. Suddenly, his teacher's face jerked up as he was punched by an animal-masked ninja that appeared out of nowhere and the fire jutsu sailed into the night sky.

Surprised, Naruto saw that three more masked ninja drop down from the trees. One of then touched his teacher on the back of his neck and the chuunin dropped like a ton of bricks. Naruto watched in awe at the ease with which another masked ninja tied up the offender. All this happened in a span of 4 seconds. Naruto couldn't believe his eyes. These were ANBU, feared both inside and outside the village. These were the elite of even the elite. One of them with long purple hair turned towards him and started walking up to him. Naruto felt fear taking over again as he struggled to get away. The ANBU's hand was glowing a weird color of green. Naruto had never seen that before. The ANBU reached out its hand and Naruto flinched, but suddenly the pain in his neck seemed to lessen as it came in contact with the green hand. The ANBU moved from one injury to another. Naruto was busy looking at the healing process and missed the signals the other ANBU was passing each other.

'What's the next step?' the crane shaped mask ANBU signaled.

'Put prisoner in a cell, file report.' The leader signaled back.

'Priority?' bird asked.

The leader glanced at the pair by the tree where Sparrow was healing the boy. It wasn't required of her, she could have just transported him to the hospital, but she was a rookie and hadn't become as detached as was advised for ANBU. The boy looked like he would make a full recovery in a few days.

'Non-Urgent: level three.' He signaled to the crane.

'Non-Urgent? Confirm please. Hokage cares for the subject.' Crane offered back.

'Confirm. Disturbing the Third now is avoidable. But, inadvisable to delay later than 900hrs tomorrow.' The leader decided after thinking. He looked up to see sparrow return. He glanced over her shoulder and saw the child still lying under the tree. She nodded. The leader's eyes, hidden inside his mask, met the blue of the child as he cast a genjutsu for sleep. He watched the child's eyelids close. The leader signaled and the squad vanished together with their bound prisoner.

Naruto woke up an hour later. He felt uncomfortable. Then he realized he wasn't in his house. He smelled the dirt and slowly opened his eyes. An unusual scene met his eyes and reminded Naruto of the incident that had occurred little over an hour ago. Memories of the fight came back to him, along with what the teacher had told him. Naruto lay on the ground, thinking furiously. He felt the shakes return as sleep left his body. The full weight of what he had been told hit him. He was a demon. He had killed hundreds of this village's people, and for that he was hated. No one in this village would recognize him as a ninja. For a long time, all Naruto had wanted was to gain acceptance from the villagers. Now, he knew it was not possible. Sooner or later someone else would try to kill him, and might succeed. He was not strong enough to fight off ninja. Tears rolled off his face as Naruto lay in the dirt. Naruto closed his eyes as he came to a gut wrenching conclusion. He opened his eyes and said to himself, his voice shaking.

"I have to leave the village."

Naruto slowly made his way out of the woods. He was still feeling phantom pain from the burns. Between the kind ANBU and his fast healing, he had all but recovered. A night of rest would be enough for him to be back to a 100 percent. But it was not an option. He had to leave tonight. Even though the masked ninjas had taken the crazy ninja away, Naruto couldn't be sure he wouldn't be back in the academy tomorrow. Naruto would have to leave before dawn.

This line of thought brought a new dilemma to Naruto's mind. If he ran away, Hokage-jiji was sure to send someone after him. He knew that the people who ran away from their villages were killed. It was one of the few things he had paid attention to in the academy lessons. (He didn't realize that he wasn't a ninja yet, so couldn't be a nukenin.) To avoid any pursuers he would have to go far away, but he didn't have any money. He was given enough for food and groceries, but he had spent most of it. Even if he hadn't, Naruto was sure he would need a lot more than what he had. Naruto mused as he jumped from rooftop to rooftop.

Suddenly, Naruto realized that, in his thoughts, he had come back to his teacher's house, instead of going home. He was about to turn back when a thought struck him. He turned and watched his teacher's apartment. If he was running away, he couldn't get into any more trouble if he 'borrowed' some stuff from the hateful teacher. The window to the ninja's apartment was still open. It was splashed in the orange color from his trap. The sight of his teacher covered in orange, spluttering brought a small grin to his face. It went as quickly as it had come when he remembered what his teacher had told him. He had read (had been forced to read) about the Kyuubi's attack in the History books. Even he had been surprised at the devastation that the book had described. If he was the Kyuubi, he should have remembered doing something like that. Naruto was pretty sure that if he did what had been described in the books, he would remember it. His bastard of a teacher had told him that the Fourth had sealed the Kyuubi. He didn't know a lot about Sealing. All he knew was that it allowed the use of awesome things such as exploding tags and chakra activating triggers that he used. Maybe his memory had somehow got lost when the Fourth had sealed him. Naruto felt a growing sense of guilt towards the village. Even in his predicament, he felt for the poor villagers who had lost dear ones to him. Naruto would never know, even in the future, that it was this habit of his, putting others before himself, that brought him so many friends over the years.

Finally, after a few silent minutes, Naruto shook his head and cleared his mind. He needed to think fast. He jumped into the empty apartment and closed the window behind him. He didn't want any random ninja accidentally getting a look inside and see him.

Naruto turned and saw that the apartment was quite bigger than his own. In fact, the room he was standing in was bigger than his small living room-kitchen-dining room combined. He looked under the bed and was rewarded with a sturdy looking bag pack. It was standard Shinobi issue, to be used on missions. He opened it to see that it already contained quite a few supplies that he would need. He laid them all out on the floor. He let his eyes glide over the objects. He could see a small water bottle, a sleeping bag, a blanket, some rolls of ninja wire, a hare trap, a small pan, utensils and a compass. He still needed something to light a fire with. His teacher obviously didn't need one as he could just use small fire jutsus. He would also need money. For that, Naruto felt, he would have to look around.

Naruto began looking around in the bedside closet. He found what he was looking for in the bottom drawer, a battered purse that had seen better days. Naruto emptied its contents into Gama-chan. As he was putting back the purse, his eye fell on a little hole in the base of the drawer. Naruto recognized it for a finger hole to lift the false bottom in the drawer. He had one in his drawer as well. He kept his scrolls in there, the ones Hokage-Jiji had given him over the years. He felt sad over this as he wouldn't be going back to his apartment now. As soon as he got enough, he would leave. Naruto's eyes watered as he fought to keep tears at bay. He had promised himself when he was little that he wouldn't cry over small things. He lifted the contents of the drawer out of the wardrobe and removed the false bottom.

Inside were some more rolls of cash, a few scrolls and a loose paper. Naruto picked up the paper and turned it over. It seemed a sort of a quickly scribbled note. Naruto read its contents-

I've managed to copy you a few jutsu scrolls. Remember, learn them and destroy them. If anyone found out that I copied forbidden jutsu, I'd find my ass handed to Ibiki sooner than you could say 'Hokage'. Maybe these will help you pass your jounin exams, Kami knows you've failed enough times.

-Chizou

Naruto looked at the scrolls neatly packed in the hidden space. These were super strong jutsus and from the looks of it, his teacher wasn't supposed to have them. Naruto thought deeply. Until now, he hadn't thought beyond running away. But now, he was forced to ponder on the future. Even after he ran away, he would have to get stronger to fend for himself. Naruto decided that he would take these scrolls and learn them later, when he managed to learn to use 'chatara' for jutsu. He picked them up and placed them with the other items on the floor. He decided that he would need a few other items such as kunai and shuriken as well. He spent the next ten minutes searching for the items.

Finally, after an hour, Naruto was ready. He slung the bag over his back and made his way to the window. A steel glint caught his eye. On a hook next to the window, hung a hitai-ate. Naruto had wanted one ever since he could remember. The shiny metal and the band was proof of being a village's ninja. It was an acknowledgement of the existence of the ones who wore it. His hands reached for the navy blue cloth. Just as he was about to take it off the hook on the wall, his teacher's face flashed in his mind. His hand stopped. Did he want the hitai-ate of the man who tried to kill him? No, Naruto decided. The man was not worthy enough for Naruto to wear his second hand hitai-ate. Naruto moved to the window, opened it and jumped out.

Naruto had thought about leaving a note for the Hokage. After the man had treated him with kindness all his life, Naruto felt bad leaving without a small goodbye and thank-you letter. He knew the Hokage-jiji would be surprised to see Naruto taking the trouble to write anything, but it was the least Naruto could do. But Naruto also knew that the Hokage's mansion was always surrounded by the masked ANBU. He may fool the lower level ninja like chuunin, but he couldn't yet get around the elite of the elite: The ANBU. He would be caught and then either thrown in a cell or brought in front of the Hokage-jiji. Either way, he would be unable to leave. So he decided to instead leave the note for the Hokage with the note for Iruka-sensei at the chuunin's house. He turned to the direction of the house of the kind teacher. Iruka-sensei had once made him carry test papers to his house as punishment for playing a prank in class. Later, he had treated Naruto to ramen for the very first time. Naruto still remembered the apartment, it was near Ichiraku Ramen.

Naruto reached the apartment and deposited the notes behind the potted plants that his teacher kept on his windows.

"Goodbye, Iruka-sensei." Naruto whispered as he jumped off again.

Naruto stealthily made his way to the great wall surrounding and protecting Konoha. It took Naruto some time to manage to climb the narrow spiral of stairs that was used by the repairmen or the non-ninja population of Konoha to climb to the top of the wall. It had become cloudy and the moon was completely hidden behind the grey clouds. Naruto ran on top of the wall towards the main gates. As he reached them, all he needed to do now was to jump from the wall to the trees outside. Naruto stopped in the shadows. He turned to look at his village one last time. His life here had not been a happy one. He had cried himself to sleep for so many times that he had lost count.

The cloud shifted for a bit and the moon shone briefly. Naruto's eyes went to the Hokage monument. Four faces stared back at him, their gaze unflinching. Naruto felt a little guilty as he looked at the faces of the great leaders of his village. Maybe it was a trick of the light or Naruto's own feelings, but their faces almost looked sad. Naruto couldn't help but feel that he had failed them. They had never run from their battles. Three of them had fought to their last breaths, and had never backed down. Tears threatened at his eyes. He had wanted to become like them. In the beginning, it had been his attempt to gain recognition, but later when he had been forced to read about them by Iruka-sensei, and told their stories by Hokage-jiji, he had wanted to become like them for different reasons. Now, he was running away, like a coward. His restraint broke as he started to sob. "I-I'm sorry." He wheezed between his sobs. No reply came "I'm not l-like you guys-ttebayo. I'm still a little kid. I'm not s-strong." He sniffed, tears overflowing his face. "I'm sorry, Dattebayo.", his shoulders sagged as he turned.

Lightning shone in the sky, illuminating the corner where Naruto had been standing, now empty. The following thunder made the Hokage grumble as he woke up. It started raining heavily. As another lightning flashed across the sky, the Hokage glanced out of his window at the Hokage monument as he rose to close his window and then stared. For the briefest of moments, it had seemed as if the face of the Fourth had been crying.

Naruto was exhausted and hurting. Running away had seemed like a good idea three days ago. Now, he was lost in an unknown land, hungry from not eating for two days. He had gotten wet in the heavy downpour the night he had left and was pretty sure that he was sick. Usually, a few hours of rest was all it took for him to get better. Maybe because he was a demon, he thought. Naruto sneezed. He hadn't had time to rest as he had been running nonstop to get out of the reach of the faster, elite tracker ninja. He was convinced that his head would burst. He could hardly keep his eyes open. He had run towards Earth country hoping that Konoha would not send its ninja into enemy territory to look for him. He had steered away from towns and villages after the last time he had run away to shake his pursuers off. The sun on his back made his throat parched. He stumbled and fell down, the weight of his rucksack almost crushing him. He didn't have the strength to pick himself up. For the first time since his flight from Konoha Naruto slept.

The pain in his head woke him up. He felt someone take his bag off his back. He tried to grab his bag when he heard a gentle voice as he was turned on his back.

"Don't worry; I am only trying to help you."

Naruto tried to open his eyes but the effort increased the pain, so he gave up after he managed to open them for a second. He saw a gentle face with long black hair. The last thing he heard was the person call out to someone.

"We should help him, Zabuza-sama."

Then he passed out.

Author's notes:

For all the people who would like to point out that Naruto isn't the Kyuubi, I KNOW.. but Naruto doesn't. He still thinks that he is the tailed beast.

Remember, reviews motivate the author to work faster and better... so please review :-)