Chapter 1: The Beginning

It was a sunny day in the village hidden in the leaves and all seemed peaceful as people did their business and an occasional ninja can be seen gliding atop the roofs. However if one is to take a second look they can see one Naruto Uzumaki running for his dear life from an angry crowd of villagers.

"Stop! Leave me alone! What did i ever do to you!?" the young blonde said as he ran. He was ansered by a chorus of Get back here demon and Kill it! Naruto being frightened even more just ran faster until he saw an alley way. Seeing an oppurtunity ducked into the alleyway only to see, to his horror, that it was a dead end.

"There it is!" the lead villager yelled as he entered the alley. "lets kill it!" Naruto was slowly backing up farther into the wall hoping somehow he would dissapear. Alas fate had other things in mind as the villagers slowly creeped up towards him.

"H-Help! Help me!" the young Uzumaki cried. This was answered by a chorus of laughs from the villagers .

"HA! No one is gonna help a monster like you. NOW DIE" the lead villager shouted as he ran towards Naruto with his pitchfork in front of him ready to stab anyone in the way. As he was mere moments from spearing through Naruto a shadow jumped from a nearby roof top and landed a few feet away from the charging villager. Naruto saw this shadow go through some hands signs and saw what looked like his shadow coming alive and mixing with the crowd of angry villager's shadow.

"Shadow Paralysis Justu success" the shadow stated rather cooly. He then turned to the Naruto and he saw that the shadow was in fact Shikaku Nara. Naruto doesn't know this man personally but he has seen him and heard of him time to time, especially when he went to visit the hokage, or as Naruto calls him "jiji".

"Hey kid you alright?" Shikaku asked. Naruto was about to answer, but he promptly fainted. In all fairness three hours of running and almost getting speared by a pitchfork would tire a five year old out even with outragous stamina such as Naruto.

"Kid! KID!" Shikaku yelled as he ran over to the boy to check his status. After a few moments the Nara let out a deep sigh. Thats a relief he's just unconcious, He thought. A second later a squad of Anbu arrived at the scene. Shikaku turned around to face them and said "Take this idiots to the T&I department, i'll bring Naruto to Hokage-Sama. The squad of Anbu nodded and started to herd the mob towards ibiki for some needed torturing. A few shouts of protest came from the crowd, but that was quickly silenced with a few chops the neck.

The Nara proceeded to take Naruto and start jumping rooftop to rooftop towards the direction of the Hokage tower. Thank kami i came when i did if i was a second too late...

Flashback:

Shikaku Nara exited the bar after hanging with his old teammates. He was planning to get drunk and have fun but if he did he would have to come face to face with the one thing he fears, an angry house wife. He does love his wife very much, but still 'Hell hath no wrath like a women scorned' as the old saying goes. So before his wife can go on about how irresponsible he is and always coming home late, he bid farewell to his friends and made a hasty retreat to the direction of his home with one thought on his mind:

Troublesome...

He was halfway home thinking about dinner and plans for future clan events and such, when he heard yelling a few blocks down. Normally no one has that kind of hearing, but being a trained ninja has its perks. The Screaming piqued his curiousity since it has been rather peaceful lately with no missions or extreme council meetings (other than the ones about naruto) so he heads over for some exitement in his life. Lazy or not,you cant go months without some action in your life even if your a Nara.

I just hope its nothing troublesome he thought. He turned a corner and he sees a bunch of villagers surrounding an alley and gathering more and more to make a bigger crowd. Seeing no way in he takes to the nearest roof and drops his jaw in shock at what he sees. A dirty, blond haired boy his trapped at the edge of the alley with a terrified look on his face, while a civilian is charging toward him. With his ninja training he rockets in between the two and lands a few feet away from the man with the pitchfork. He quickly sped through seals and his shadow stretched as if it had a life of its own and merged with the crowd's shadows, stopping them in their place.

"Shadow Paralysis Justsu success" Shikaku said and turned towards the young Naruto and immediatly recognizing him as the container of the kyubi. That explains why the villagers where chasing him Shikaku thought. "Hey Kid you alright?"

Flashback End.

Shikaku was quickly pulled out of his thoughts as he neared the hokage tower. Not wasting anytime he pulled a Shunshin and landed in front of the Hokage at his desk. The old man quickly looked up from his paperwork and saw the Nara in front of him.

"Ah. Shikaku, what can i do for you?" said the Old Man. Before Shikaku could answer The hokage saw the bundle in The Shadow weilders arms and immediately recognized it as Naruto. "What happened?! Was it those damn villagers again?"

Shikaku could only nod as he saw fury on his leaders face. He set Naruto down on the couch and faced the Hokage and told him a brief report on what happened. The aging Hokage could only sit down, rub his temples and let out a long sigh.

Shikaku then spoke up: "Hokage-Sama if i may ask how is this allowed to happen? Surely he has some type of guardian in the orphanage? He could not be just left to wander the town knowing the dangers. Hiruzen could only look up with sad eyes.

"Sadly the orphanage has kicked him out saying he was old enough to live on his own. I decided that was not the best place for him to live and got him an apartment. It is a little run down but its the best i could do and the only place that would rent to him fairly." He looked somberly towards Naruto. "And sadly i cannot grant guardians that wont do away with him because of petty hate or even money. I cannot assign Anbu since we have a shortage since the kyubi attack. I just dont know what to do anymore, it seems whatever i try it always ends up failing."

Shikaku could only look on as he took it all in. He was feeling a number of emotions, sadness for the boy, anger for the orphanage and regret wishing he could of done something. As he took a closer look at his leader his feelings turned into great pain. The hokage was crying. Never in all Shikaku's years had he seen the Village leader so sad. He looked towards Naruto and thought mabye its not too late to do something.

"Hokage-Sama if i may ask..." Hiruzen looked up to see Shikaku's light smile. "I Wish to adopt Naruto Uzumaki"

A/N well theres my first chapter of my first story. Kinda short but i like it. Anyways reveiw make suggestions, im open to critism...but not too much. Thanks for reading until next time!