Chapter Text
"Okay, Naruto, just make a clone now." Iruka smiled encouragingly
The blonde tensed slightly, sighing as he went through the proper hand seals quickly, "Bunshin no Jutsu (Clone Technique)!"
Naruto tried to tame his chakra, to force the astonishing mass down into three normal clones. He waited for the smoke to clear with apprehension, and what came out of his efforts made him deflate all at once.
The clones were just three deformed masses slumped on the ground. Not even the facial features were correct; they looked like they'd been poorly drawn on by some five-year-old with absolutely no artistic talent. Even the whiskers on his cheeks just looked like meaningless scribbles.
Closing his eyes, he pressed back the tell-tale stinging feeling that went hand in hand with tears and forced himself to look at the two men sitting at a desk in the front of the classroom. Mizuki-sensei looked savagely happy, which made Naruto's gut twist and turn in a mixture of anger and resignation. However, Iruka-sensei's expression hurt him even more. Disappointment filled his eyes as he looked at Naruto with sadness and pity.
He hated pity. He'd always hated pity. The villagers that weren't angry at him, the ones that didn't hate him, always ended up at pity. It seemed his life was filled with those two emotions, and everything circled back around to them one way or another. Hatred or pity, he couldn't decide which was worse.
Naruto looked at Iruka-sensei and tried to ignore the conflicting emotions welling up in the pit of his stomach. Grief, disappointment, anger, resentment; all of these emotions flushed through him along with embarrassment as he dispelled the three failed clones.
Iruka frowned upon seeing the boy's face, not sure if Naruto knew just how much his expression gave away what he was feeling.
"I'm sorry, Naruto." Iruka pursed his lips, "You have failed to meet the requirements to pass. You can always try again next year, though."
Biting his lip, the blonde boy nodded before rushing out, leaving the room and trying to ignore the condemning eyes of his classmates as he left outside. Soon all the exams were over, and Naruto stared at the patchy grass so he didn't have to watch all the excited children with headbands running out to embrace their equally excited parents. Now, he wasn't even dead last. He was just the only one he didn't graduate.
"Look at it. I almost feel sorry for it."
"I don't. Serves it right, after everything it did."
"It was the only one who didn't graduate."
"As I said, serves it right after-"
"Shh! You can't talk about that!"
His shoulders slumped further, hearing the whispers of the civilian mothers as he sat in the shadows on the swing right in front of the academy. He wasn't stupid, he knew that much. It was just so hard to focus, especially since he was pretty bored the majority of the time.
History was his favorite, and he was really good at it. Except, of course, remembering specific dates, which was pretty much the only part of history the academy cared about. He knew the intricacies of his chakra pathways, but Kami forbid you asked him to dumb the answer down enough to fit in a sentence.
Naruto had even learned to create seals, tracing kanji and symbols into the wood of his desk when he grew disinterested. Sadly, the academy cared very little about fūinjutsu outside of it being a footnote of the past and a village named Uzushio that was long dead.
The fact was he just didn't really care to do well most of the time. He wanted to be outside, running around, pulling pranks and causing mischief. Anything else when the alternative was being trapped behind a desk for eight hours. Now, after all those years stuck in the academy wishing that he could just become a genin already and escape, he would never be what he was meant to be. He would never be more than the demon kid people snickered about. He wanted to be more, though, he wanted it with every fiber in his body.
He closed his eyes, ignoring the spike of chakra that happened in reaction to his grief, and tried to reign his emotions in. All the glares, the rotten food he got sold, the fact that his birthday happens to be the day the village mourns from the Kyūbi attack, coupled with the fact that he'd seen the seal on his stomach...well, Naruto could put two and two together. Now he'd never have a chance to rise above that, to prove he was more. He had the knowledge for so much, he just didn't know how to apply it in real-life situations. Which, in hindsight, was almost as bad as not having it at all.
Hands tightening around the ropes of the swingset when he sensed another person grow closer, Naruto looked up to see Mizuki-sensei coming towards him with an alarmingly kind smile on his face. Mizuki had always hated Naruto, the blond boy could tell, despite the thinly veiled attempts on the academy teacher's part to hide it.
"Naruto, are you doing okay?" He smiled, but it seemed more patronizing than anything else, "I know it must be hard to be the only one-"
"What do you want?" Naruto sighed, looking at the man with a borderline annoyed expression, "If you're here to tell me what I already know...please don't."
Mizuki seemed thrown off momentarily because for a split second he didn't see the blond demon sitting on the swing in front of him. His eyes looked so much older, and he was pinned under the gaze of someone who knew what he was trying to do. However, he kept up his smile and continued to speak placidly to the boy in front of him.
"Unless you already know of a way to graduate despite failing your exams, I'd say this is new information." At the boy's confused look, Mizuki couldn't help but laugh, "Exactly. All you need to do, Naruto, is trust me."
Every fiber of his being told him to run away, to go find Iruka-sensei and tell him what Mizuki had just said. Something stopped him, though. He wanted to be a ninja, he wanted to prove people wrong. If he was going to be something more, he needed to be a genin. So he controlled his racing heart and kept his urges to flee locked away and stared Mizuki down, raising his eyebrows and silently prompting the man to continue.
The chūnin was unnerved by the boy's silent stare, his blue eyes intense, but the teacher merely smiled and explained, "All you need to do is sneak into the Hokage Residence and learn one technique from the Scroll of Seals. If you manage to do this and meet me in the forest surrounding the residence with the scroll as proof, you'll graduate."
"Why didn't Iruka-sensei tell me about this?" Naruto's eyes were narrowed now, "Why would you take the time to tell me?"
It was no secret Mizuki hated Naruto, even Iruka could tell that much. Not that this was new, Naruto couldn't count the number of people that despised him the same way he couldn't count the number of stars in the sky. There were simply too many, probably the majority of the civilian population and some of the shinobi population, as well. It had been that way for as long as he could remember, with Hokage-jiji and Iruka-sensei the only ones to really care about him nowadays.
In his younger years, there were a few ANBU agents, like Dog and Crow, who would give him clothes and food occasionally. Cat had even sometimes brought him toys. Now there were no ANBU agents and Naruto spent most of his time alone with his ramen and fantasies.
"I don't...hate you, Naruto." Mizuki's smile was just as fake as Iruka's when he had first met Naruto, "I want all my students to succeed."
"How long do I have?"
"Until midnight. Don't get caught, remember this is a test to see if you have enough skill to be a genin."
He knew he shouldn't do it. This was shady shit at best, traitorous at worst. He shook it off as Mizuki left and began to plan on how to sneak into the Hokage Residency. It wouldn't be the first time he's ever done it, at least. He once set off a paint bomb in Jiji's private office; it had been funny until he had to be the one to clean it up. Still, he knew how to get in. After sneaking past the jonin guards and while the ANBU were changing stations, which was a pain in the ass to do because they were constantly changing stations, he snuck in.
In the pitch-black night, the moon hung shallowly in the sky and provided sparse lighting as Naruto lugged the huge scroll out of the heavily chained cabinet that held multiple others as well. This one was on the top shelf, though, and the kanji clearly spelled out its name as well as the consequences of opening it. Nevertheless, he closed the doors and relocked the lock he had picked with a kunai minutes earlier. It had been, Naruto felt, far too easy.
Unrolling the great scroll, Naruto's eyes widened as the massive parchment lay exposed in front of him. It must've been fifty feet long, if not more, and Naruto didn't have a clue how he was going to learn one of these long ass techniques in the squandering hour he had left before Mizuki showed up. But he forced himself over to it, determined, and looked at the first jutsu on the list. Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Shadow Clone Technique) was written, and it actually sounded decently easy.
Horse, rat, monkey, ram; that was it, only four hand seals, so simple. He ran through them in seconds, fingers flying as they went through the motions he knew by heart. He felt a large amount of chakra be expelled, though still only a drop in his reserves. Beside him stood a perfect copy of himself, staring back at him.
That's better, he thought, it uses a lot more chakra. Essentially, he had the shitiest chakra control ever due to the sheer amount of it. A wave of exhilaration washed over him, followed by bubbling curiosity. He dispelled the clone, returning to the scroll quickly. He ran his fingers over the lines of kanji, eyes darting through the mass amount of information.
He finally paused, seeing something far too familiar. The Eight Trigrams, an exact copy of the seal on his naval. The seal that was used to hold the Kyūbi inside him. A jinchūriki, the word came to him unbidden, that's what he was. That's also why people hated him. He frowned, eyebrows furrowing as he remembers the story that was preached at the academy and all over Konoha. The Yondaime Hokage defeated the demon fox and vanquished it permanently. What a load of bullshit. More like the Yondaime decided it would be cool to seal the demon into a random baby.
His opinion of both the village and the Hokage now slightly diminished the more thought he gave to the clusterfuck of a situation, he sat on the ground and rolled the seal back up. He could make a clone now and it was drawing close to an hour being up, so he only had to wait for Mizuki to get there.
He still had a bad feeling about that, as he looked around in the darkness of the forest, his reason told him something was wrong and he was probably in huge trouble. He was used to being in trouble by now, though. It didn't really phase him, at this point. He sensed someone approaching from behind, their chakra alerting him to their presence, and stood. He expected it to be Mizuki; it wasn't.
"It's all over now, Naruto."
"Iruka-sensei?" Naruto's eyebrows rose, "What're you doing here? I thought-"
"What am I doing here?" Iruka seemed incredulous, "Naruto, you stole the forbidden scroll. Why wouldn't I be here? Everyone is looking for you-!"
"They make that big of a deal out of this test?" Unease settled into his stomach, and doubt lapped at him like the ocean does the shore, "Wow. I mean, I technically passed the test. I can make a clone now. Turns out I have too much chakra for the regular ones, I was just gonna explain it to Mizuki-sensei when he got here. Turns out you got here first. You're quick, huh, sensei?"
"Test?" Iruka said, confusion clouding his face, "What are you talking about, Naruto?"
"The test." He knew it, he knew it, it was all a bullshit lie, "If I learn a jutsu from this scroll, I can become a genin. Mizuki-sensei told me that's how it worked, you got an extra opportunity if you failed but your sensei still thought you had potential. Iruka-sensei? Are you okay?"
The man had grown exceedingly pale during Naruto's explanation, "Naruto, we need to go to the Hokage! Right now, come on!"
Iruka grabbed him by the arm, but the snapping of leaves and branches had them both freezing. He hadn't noticed the approach this time, Mizuki showing up in the middle of Naruto's panic, and the boy cursed himself for his lack of attention.
"Naruto!" The other man held out his hand, "Give me the scroll now! This is part of the test, some people in life are going to want you to fail. Iruka does. Give me the scroll, Naruto, and you'll be a shinobi."
Iruka's eyes grew wide as he gave Mizuki a furious look, "Stop lying this instant, Mizuki! What are you thinking?"
"Come on, Naruto." The man was fiddling with the kunai in his hand, and when Iruka moved to flee with Naruto and the scroll, he threw it right at the academy teacher.
Iruka didn't see it coming, Naruto realized. Too focused on getting them both to safety, he didn't realize it was sailing right towards his neck. Naruto shoved him down on instinct, ducking out of the kunai's path himself. He held tight to the scroll as Iruka sat up, confused until he noticed the blade sticking out of the tree right behind him.
"Oh, how pathetic." Mizuki sneered, "You need the dead last to save you, Iruka?"
Traitor. The thought made him angry despite the fact that he was scared, his heart beating way too fast, and yet his blood was also boiling. He was furious at Mizuki for tricking him and furious at himself for buying into it. He should've known. In truth, he had known. It was obvious, no one ever made genin if they failed the exam. He was so stupid, he'd just wanted it so badly he'd let himself be naive. It'd get him killed one day.
("Yuudai, you don't want to do this!"
He was knee-deep in mud, a nagamaki supporting him as he leaned on it, trying to catch his breath. He'd been fighting for days now, exhaustion weighing him down like a stone. A man with brown hair stood in front of him, disappointment in his golden eyes and a frown marring his lips. He looked at Amahiko with pity and thinly veiled anger.
"Oh, but I do."
Rage boiled in his veins, "You were born here! This is your home! How could you betray us like this? How could you betray me?"
His voice cracked and his chest hurt and the stench of blood permeated the air. He tried to stare at the traitor in front of him rather than look at the dead bodies of those laying on the ground all around him. Oh, Kami, he was supposed to protect these people-
"Power is a dangerous thing, Amahiko, and you have no idea how to use it. The Sandaime was wrong to train you, but I guess he didn't know you'd be a weak-willed coward." Yuudai's smile was twisted, "To think, your uncle would probably cheer for your death if he saw you now."
"We grew up together." His voice was rough, "We...we...You don't want to do this. You know I only do what is best for Uzushio! Are you willing to give up everything this village has given you? Everything I've given you?"
"I'm sure you do what's best for the village, in your opinion." Yuudai stilled, his face going grim, "You have so much strength, I always admired it, but there's so little ambition. You're running Uzushio into the ground! We should stand against our enemies, now cower before them!"
"War is not the answer! You disagree with how I run the village so you decide to destroy it instead?" Blood was running down his face, and red hair was beginning to fall in his eyes and he knew his voice sounded hysterical, "That is not a solution! Look at the dead and wounded, Yuudai! They were your friends! Look at what you've done, because soon you will be lying with them for your crimes!"
His smile was savage, "I'm going to raze this village to the ground with you in it, and then I'm going to raise it up once more to be something better! The Uzumaki clan has reigned for too long, don't you agree? I think it's time for a shift in power!"
Yuudai ran at him as he struggled to stand, katana in hand and fighting to kill.)
He pulled himself from the thoughts as Iruka grabbed him and pushed him behind his back to shield him. Naruto watched in a daze as Mizuki jumped from the tree branch and began to stalk towards them.
"Iruka doesn't want you to graduate, Naruto. Don't blow this for yourself."
"I already told you once to stop lying." Iruka growled, further placing himself in front of Naruto, "You'd better listen this time, traitor."
The white-haired man's face darkened, "Do you really want to talk about lies, Iruka?"
The brunette man's body seized, and he jerked in panic, "It is forbidden, and I will not allow you to speak of it!"
"Says the one who's relying on a child to save him. You can't forbid me from doing much of anything." Mizuki shot Iruka a loathing look, and Naruto had never hated someone so much in his entire life, "Naruto, do you know why the village hates you?"
"Stop!" Iruka roared, "Naruto, do not listen to him!"
"It's because the Kyūbi is sealed within you. The same beast that killed Iruka's parents has possessed your body. You are the nine-tailed fox, Naruto, and I'm doing the village a favor by eliminating you here."
"Naruto, run!" Iruka released him, looking back at him to beg, "Go now! Tell the ANBU and the Hokage to come immediately!"
"Why are you still protecting him?" Mizuki grabbed the Fūma Shuriken off his back, the huge blade dwarfing his hand easily, "He's a demon! He killed your own parents!"
(The woman had her vibrant hair arranged in two buns, tags hanging from both of them as she stood with her hands clasped together. A purple diamond marked her forehead, and her white kimono swayed in the village's wind.
"Mito-sama, it's an honor."
He bowed towards her and watched her smile, "It is my honor to meet you, Amahiko-san, and to see my homeland once more. You are now the Yondaime Uzukage, correct?"
"Yes, Mito-sama." He inclined his head towards her with a wry grin, "My uncle grew tired of the paperwork."
She clucked her tongue, "Tenma always was lazy. You've made a name for yourself, though. Akai Kami (The Red God), or so I hear they've been calling you."
At her raised eyebrow and calm disposition, he felt horribly belittled by her presence, "Well, they call me a lot of things."
"I'm sure."
He laughed, a little nervously if he was honest, and felt like he was two years old again and clutching his mother's skirts. This woman had sealed the nine-tailed fox within her own body, she was the wife of the Shodai Hokage, and most importantly she was a force of nature in battle.
Sure, he was a fūinjutsu master too, but when this woman who was so many years his senior, this woman who survived the Feudal Era and came out on top, this woman with the audacity to seal the strongest of the Biju inside her own gut...when this woman looked at him, he felt like an ant.)
"You're wrong, you know." Naruto snapped, interrupting Mizuki's rant, "I'm not the Kyūbi!"
Mizuki scoffed, "The demon is in denial. How cute."
"No, I'm not." The blond insisted, "That's not even how seals work, you ignorant shit! A storage scroll doesn't become a kunai, just like a jinchūriki isn't a demon! Would you say the Shodai's wife was a demon? No! So why am I?"
Mizuki and Iruka both looked stupefied for a moment, blinking at him with wide eyes. Naruto moved before they could react, holding the scroll in one hand and jerking the kunai out of the tree behind him with his other. He threw it at Mizuki, watching it land bone deep in his shoulder. He smiled, satisfied when he heard the scream that escaped the man. Mizuki tossed the Fūma Shuriken blindly, and this time Iruka was shoving Naruto out of the way.
He heard the chūnin grunt in pain as he hovered above him. The giant weapon had struck him in the back before falling out due to the sheer size, making blood drip in a steady stream down to the forest floor. Instincts took over and he scrambled out from under his sensei, blood boiling when he saw the man collapse down onto his hands before struggling to sit up. Naruto turned his gaze on Mizuki, and he felt a sick sort of pleasure curl in his gut when the man froze under his eyes, hand still gripping his bleeding shoulder.
"You aren't going to hurt Iruka-sensei anymore, traitor." He spat the last word with venom, "You'll never hurt anyone in this village again!"
He said it with such an air of finality and confidence, and he never saw Iruka's astonished but proud look behind him. Mizuki sneered, recovering from Naruto's cold gaze, and charged at him with a kunai in hand. Raising his hands, his fingers formed a few seals, and the next thing he knew a wave of chakra flooded his body. He could taste the salty air and he could see a vision of a woman, her red hair flowing loosely in the breeze as she sat beside him on the edge of the cliffs.
He was home.
Water swirled into existence, condensing out of nothing except the moisture in the air. It formed quickly, sharp spikes appearing in the air too fast for Mizuki to react to.
"Suiton: Ōshandagā (Water Release: Ocean Daggers)." Naruto hissed as he thrust his hands forward.
He watched in solemn silence as Mizuki was thrown back by the force of the jutsu, the chakra-enforced water piercing him right through his stomach. He was l eft in a huge puddle, crumpled on the ground and silent, and Naruto wasn't sure if he wanted the man to be dead or not. Turning to see his sensei's wide eyes and the proud quirk of his mouth, Naruto decided he didn't care what the traitor's fate was. He cared that Iruka was safe, and right now the man was still bleeding at an alarming rate.
"I-I'm sorry, sensei." Naruto knelt by the man, swallowing thickly, "I should've known."
"Did you...learn that in the scroll?" Iruka looked a bit confused, gesturing to Mizuki.
Naruto knew it was a lie, but it was also easier to explain, "Yeah."
The man seemed impressed, "I'm proud of you, Naruto-kun. I think...I think you've earned this."
His breath caught in his throat as his sensei reached up and untied his headband from his forehead. He held it out, and Naruto accepted it with reverence. This wasn't the shiny new ones every graduate got at the academy, no, but it meant so much more than those. It meant so much more than any person would ever know. Looking at Iruka with wide eyes, he had to fight to stop tears from forming.
"I...thank you, sensei."
"I'm not your sensei anymore, Naruto-kun. You're a genin now." His smile was pained but kind, "I want you to listen to me though. I know what you said, but still, you need to hear this. No matter what that filth said, or what the villagers say, you are not-!"
"A demon." His tone was sardonic, "I'm aware."
Iruka seemed lost, "How did you even find out?"
"Well, everyone hates me, and my birthday just so happens to be the day a literal demon attacked Konoha. When you look at my seal, it's not hard to form a pretty basic picture." Naruto admitted, "I know my clan, too. Mito Uzumaki was literally the first jinchūriki ever. It just makes sense."
Letting out an only slightly pained laugh, Iruka pulled the boy into a tight hug, "You're smarter than you get credit for. I'm proud of you, Naruto-kun."
("I'm proud of you, Amahiko-kun." Her violet eyes sparkled, and Tatsu Yoshida looked as though he'd just given her the moon and all the stars, "My own student becoming Uzukage. I'm not surprised, of course. You, Akane, and Raiden always had so much potential, now look at what you've gone and done."
He smiled, his eyes slightly damp, "Thank you, sensei."
He hadn't spent long under her tutelage, but she'd played such a big role in his life. His team, Team Tatsu, had a short-lived but successful career as genin. Bumped up to chūnin only six months after their graduation, and making jōnin not long after that, the Yoshida woman had only had so much time to teach them.
Teach them she did, however, and none of them would ever forget her kindness or her sternness. The way she saw them as individuals when they all came from such big families; Amahiko and Akane especially, both of them being Uzumaki if only distantly related. She helped them with a kind hand and taught them what they had to do to succeed in the shinobi world. Trust your teammates, never give up, and be prepared for anything.
"Don't thank me, kid." Her smile was infectious, "Do you know how good of bragging material this is? Shoji can shut his mouth now about how his student got a jonin promotion. You three did that years ago. Now one of mine is the head medic at the hospital, one is a fūinjutsu master, and one is the Uzukage. Every other jonin sensei out there can suck my dick, 'cause I think I win at this point."
They heard a snort from behind them and turned to see Tenma Uzumaki, the Sandaime Uzukage, for once just wearing normal shinobi clothing rather than the ceremonial Uzukage garb that Amahiko now donned. He shook his head, not put off at all by her language.
"Watch it, Tatsu." He rolled his eyes at her, "Kiddies might overhear you."
She smiled, or rather smirked, "Sorry, you're not Uzukage anymore. Hiko-hime, you got a problem with my vocabulary?"
He sighed slightly at the nickname, but shook his head nevertheless, "Of course not, sensei."
"Oi!" Tenma protested, "I'm sensei!"
"Hah!" Tatsu smiled triumphantly, "I'll always be his sensei, I taught him as a genin. It forms a special bond, you know?"
"I'm his uncle though!"
Amahiko just laughed.)