It had been eight years since the Kyuubi attack. And a sun kissed teen gazed out the window, lost in thought. Entry exams were in a matter of weeks, and there were hurdles that- even after years of remedial study, were hit or miss with him. Naruto was fiercely determined to become a ninja. To become strong enough to stand up for himself.
His childhood had been rough, in ways more than it should be. Even then, Naruto had found others to believe in. All the more reason why he could not allow himself to fail.
Until the age of three, Naruto had been sheltered. Dangerously so, and not out of love, but necessity. He was given impossible standards to overcome, even as his heart sickened in grief. Never told why, even though the pain was not his alone.
Once he became four years old, he was given a home under probationary guard. That first week still gave him nightmares. He’d recovered, although it had been by sheer force of will, and not a small step into a darker world.
In the following days, Naruto exercised both reservation and conviction beyond his years to appeal to those around him. Latching unto and pinning down the shadows that plagued him and everyone around him. His chakra burned the impression of those eyes into his mind including the moment when they realized he would never become one with their hatred. Not where they would see it, and there was enough wisdom between them to realize that he truly held a monster at bay.
Naruto earned the right to stand shoulder to shoulder with the next generation, and six months later, he discovered the reason for his strife. Granted, he’d not associated the two.
Wrecked by a year of brutal weather, of freezing, downpour and simmering heat, the roads had become treacherous in places. Absorbed in the game of his peer, Naruto had taken a treacherous spill.
That is when they first emerged. The nine tails cloak, as his mind had, frantically latched onto the street and brought solid ground beneath his feet. His peers and a service worker had mirrored his surprise when they found him.
To this day, he was unsure what his cloak was capable of. Throughout the years, he had learned that they enhanced his balance and reaction times, and could grasp and move objects nearby. Provided his concentration was soundly on the later.
It’s usefulness had reached its limits with his introduction to the ninja academy. The Hokage had heard his wish, and had him enrolled when he was five. While passionate about the role, Naruto’s talent went backwards when it came to writing and theory. Mentally, he was in two places at once, and unable to differentiate between one and the other.
His grades were a dice roll, and he was currently trying to figure out a trick to get them to land in his favor. Or at least reduce their tendency to run counter to his intentions.
Naruto shook his head, withdrawing from that train of thought. His forte was in movement, and situational awareness. He might not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, but that much he knew how to develop in time for the exams.
He could always hope that something in class would speak to him.
. . . Thwack.
Naruto flinched as a bolt of chalk bounced off his forehead. He clung to the desk as his senses sprung to alert, “W-what?!”
To the amusement of a few of his classmates. The lecturer placed a hand on their hip, “Did I bore you Uzumaki?”
Naruto furrowed his brow, eyes wide but looking beyond the desktop. He had never fallen asleep in class before. Not even on the dullest of topics. Yet the moment she started talking-
He couldn’t remember a syllable of her words, and at the same time, he’d never been so acutely sure of which class he’d been taking, “Was that a genjutsu?”
The teacher paused, more for a nagging at the back of her mind. To the students in earshot though, it seemed a silent warning against backtalk.
Naruto wasn’t like every other student either. Most were split into civilian born and clan fostered. The first three years of academy classes were supplementary, geared toward getting a child with no ninja parentage the framework on which to develop ninja skills.
By the time students qualified for graduation, they would already possess some of the basic skills and reflexes of a trained shinobi. Those who passed had an idea of how to use them, or at the very least, a well rounded competency.
Children from smaller clans, or those who committed at an early age actually had the ability to meet the grading criteria early on. If they were serious about qualifying, a civilian born could graduate before a clan borne even entered the program. Those previously called geniuses manage to cram several years of coursework into a matter of months. These days, that translated to never needing much time to get full marks.
Naruto was no genius, but he was an outlier for another reason.
Orphan students are rare. Not unheard of, but the difference between rushing graduation and dropping out altogether was a coin toss. Naruto was among those dedicated to the path of glory.
For that path, he was far more open minded than normal, although If you asked anyone else, they would say his goals were far from realistic. That didn’t mean they were out of reach though.
Naruto was something in between. He was too dedicated to be expected to drop out, and yet too whimsical for someone who took the shinobi life seriously. A lot of his peers expected him to brute force his way into the final lessons, and then find another avenue.
A hopeless case, an aimless nobody, the dead last.
Few people knew this, but in the window between his release and his joining the academy, Naruto became friends with one of their current lecturers. Umino Iruka.
Iruka had been a green horn chunin, and cautious about the boy at first, but after a few chance encounters, they bonded quickly. It was covered up at the time, but Iruka had once breached the boy’s quarantine by accident, and discovered the jinchuriki. It didn’t take much shepherding from a black ops shinobi, to figure out what he’d seen.
The debriefing with the Hokage put a pretty damning nail in that coffin.
On the other hand, the incident had been a catalyst for Iruka. His hatred for the nine tails found a catalyst in humiliation, and the two sentiments paid the ultimate price. While he started off wary, Iruka discovered a kindred spirit in the blond. As the latter opened up to him, Iruka did so as well, and found both a bright mind and healthy perspective on the lifestyle of a ninja.
Naruto wanted to learn, and to become someone important. Iruka never found a reason to dash the boys hopes, and decided to open up about some of his more mundane concerns.
That’s how he discovered how exceedingly bright the boy was. While naive and a touch clumsy about it, Naruto took everything at face value, and took it a step further. When Iruka voiced a complaint, Naruto came back asking about solutions.
The boy lacked any form of professional inhibition, and he was taken by the teens opinion. Iruka was far more careful about his choice of topics, sticking to the safe side of politics. Still, his curiosity bore fruit, and eventually Iruka tried to do an experiment.
Naruto learned the tree walking exercise in a single month. Barely on his own two feet, and nothing but passing advice to work with. Iruka had watched on time and discovered the boy would use the same technique to measure his improvement as chunin and even jonin instructors.
On his own, it was an unbelievable feat. Granted, Naruto’s reserves would not see him scaling buildings or speeding across rooftops, but once Iruka saw what naruto was capable of doing with an olive branch, he volunteered whatever insights he had so long as the boy thought to ask.
Fortunately for his resolve, Iruka truly had no idea what happened to Naruto’s parents, and the boy was extremely moved when he found out what the teen had been through.
Rumors be damned, Iruka might have taken him under his wing then and there.
