Chapter Text
Naruto jumped out of his apartment window because he was just too lazy to haul a bucket full of paint down a flight of stairs. He was not sure why he wanted to degrade the Hokage faces to get attention, when he truly respected the Hokages, especially the Fourth Hokage. But those were all minor details because for some reason he has always been compelled to graffiti throughout the village. Well, he had been practising seals that way. No one knew that throughout the village he had graffitied transportation seals which were very much up his alley. He loved seals and understood them like the back of his hand.
Naruto ran down the streets, cackling as those Chunnin level morons could not catch up to him. Seriously, the Hokage Grandpa should truly stop making decisions. Who even made him the Hokage?
Today was his genin graduation thing. And he was honestly not half concerned about some Jutsu that for some reason was the only requirement of passing the genin exams. Like there were so many other Jutsu’s why was it always a cloning technique that needed to be executed for someone to pass. Naruto could hardly care, he was shit at that Jutsu and maybe he would not pass even this year, because he could not pass any year at all. Because every goddamn time it was the same fucking Jutsu. He was so done. So he skipped on the graduation exam.
Naruto opted to go and sit on a swing instead.
He was approached by a completely fugly looking Chunnin Sensei, whose name he remembered was Mizuki or something.
“I can help you pass the exam you know?”
Naruto narrowed his eyes. Uh...oh! This sort of villainy line never ended well. He gulped.
”What?”
”Steal a forbidden scroll from the Konoha archives and I will help you pass.”
”You do realise right, you are condoning a pre teen to commit a crime?”
”Ahh...No, no it is not a crime as per say...if no one knows and I was an examiner of this exam so just hand it over to me and I will let you pass.”
“Ahaan, ya...and once again it feels like you are tryin’ to get your hands on the forbidden scroll.”
Naruto chewed his lips for sometime. This looked like a golden opportunity if he had seen any. He could get something very useful from this exchange and he even had the perfect scapegoat delivered to him.
”I get to learn some new Justus from the scroll and we are game. Though I am still quite stumped over why a Chunnin is asking a pre genin to steal something from a high security locker. But that’s fine as long as you accept the deal.”
Naruto swore he had never seen someone’s face twitch that hard before. Mizuki gritted his teeth till he almost heard their enamel break off and then nodded stiffly. Naruto laughed loudly. It was so much fun pranking someone.
That night, Naruto swung through branches, placed some silencing seals and stole the forbidden seals scroll. The binding seal on the scroll was suspiciously some of easiest once he had seen, actually it was the one which had been taught at the academy. He wondered why on earth would a forbidden scroll have such an easy seal on it that even a genin could break? Was someone joking with him?
And then he opened the scroll because more than half of the things in his life have remained vaguely explained to him and he honestly did not care anymore. The scroll had the ‘Tajiu Kage Bunshin No Jutsu’ etched on it. Naruto found it hard to master. He was honestly the worst at a making a normal Bunshin. He truly wondered why was he learning this, when his base in this Jutsu was so weak. But he just learnt it for laughs and gags.
Iruka caught him pretty quickly and he gawked at the fact that the standard Anbus were not there to catch him, but it was rather fucking Iruka. He once again pitied the village for having a Hokage like the third. Was this not considered a high level security breach? Naruto was very disappointed.
”Before you begin one of your lectures Iruka sensei, I wanted to confirm that I had been threatened by Mizuki to steal the scroll.”
Iruka’s eyes widened and then looked in anger towards a hidden figure standing on a tree branch. The next few minutes was filled with some truly sleep inducing chunnin level fight which concluded when Iruka threw himself infront of Naruto in all dramatic glory and received a deadly attack targeted towards him.
Naruto was truly disturbed at the prospect of someone saving his life when he had never even asked for it, but he was grateful to Iruka for defending him. By the way Naruto had sort of figured out the fox was sealed inside of him, kind of hard not to when you see a seal the size of a football on your stomach everyday you look into the mirror.
But flexing to save someone was like no other flexing. So Naruto flexed, he flexed so hard that his shirt burst open from his chakra onslaught and Mizuki for some reason taunted a kid who could master a Jounin Jutsu in one night. Well, Naruto spoke through his fists and made Mizuki see stars. It was a good night and it ended with him receiving his Genin head band. But Naruto would seriously want to talk about the unfairness of considering a Bunshin Justu as academy passing standards. By the way, wasn’t his passing just cheating? Well, who cared, not like anyone would question him.
A very sumptuous meal later and drinking expired milk, because yeah, he was exactly that piss poor (curse you Sandaime). Naruto left his house. A brain cell reducing conversation with Konohamaru later, Naruto reached his class. Where he was teased by Shikamaru who for a genius had failed to notice his headband and sat beside his childhood rival Sasuke.
”Yo, Sas! You doin’ great?”
Naruto was polite and he wished he had not greeted him.
“Idiot!”
Sasuke spat out dramatically (Naruto could swear he was such a drama queen). Naruto felt chills down his spine when Sasuke held onto his hand under the table and turned away from him with a visible scowl on his face.
It was really cute and all if he was not crushing his hand and acting all split personalities with him.
“Naruto, today your horoscope says you will get your true love’s kiss.”
Sakura said from beside him where she took her place and placed her bag on the desk.
Naruto very confused turned around to look at Sakura and his wrist almost broke from the pressure Sasuke exerted on it.
What a bunch of weirdos! Man, he wanted to cry. Why was his life like this?
Naruto felt another shiver down his spine and almost jumped out of his seat when he saw a pair of milky white ghost like eyes staring at him from the back of the class. He hated the Hyuuga eyes, they were such nightmare material.
The black energy from Sasuke started increasing as Hinata from the back seat covered her face and murmured something while Sakura snacked on some putrid smelling recipe. Naruto’s face was almost like he had lost his soul. He almost...almost wished he had failed this year.
But thank the lord for Iruka’s existence since he appeared like a saviour and Naruto heaved a sigh of relief when he felt the class settle down.
“ Today I will assign you all into teams, each team would have three members and would be led by a Jounin Sensei.”
”Team 7, Uzumaki Naruto, Haruno Sakura and Uchiha Sasuke.”
Naruto could have killed something right now. He felt more than heard a small squeal which was then covered by a forced ‘hmph’ as Sasuke stroked his hand under the table but gave him the meanest glare in front of the class. Sakura continued drinking her putrid concoction and Naruto wanted to quit.