13.LIFE IN THE PRISON

NARUTO UZUMAKI,

EIGHT YEARS OLD,

KONOHA STRICT

CORRECTION FACILITY.....

The first one month of Naruto's life in the prison wasn't as bad as he had anticipated. It mostly consisted of threats from warden, what would happen if he misbehaved, and familiarising himself to prison life and his duties within the prison which consisted of organizing and repairing the mining tools. But that doesn't mean, all things were smooth. He had some trouble adjusting to the isolation and having less space to move around in.

In Konoha, although most people hated his existence, he was around people all the time and he could run around the whole village but now his life has dwindled to mostly one room. Of course the stay in the ANBU facility had prepared him somewhat but there really wasn't any amount of preparation that could prepare somebody for such complete isolation for long periods of time.

He had also grown much quieter as their was no one to yell at and no one to hear him. This was probably the hardest part for him to accept for the past month, but he is learning to live with it. He had spent several years trying to get people to notice him and acknowledge his existence and now the only people to acknowledge him were guards and occasional prisoners brought here for solitary confinement due to causing infighting and havoc within the prison.The civilization is miles away and he wouldn't see it again for another seven years.

On some level, he had become aware that he may not be able to become Hokage any longer. It would have certainly helped him in getting his revenge over the village and that bastard culprit who framed him. The Hokage is afterall the absolute authority within the village and he could do anything and get away from it without any consequences.

He had some trouble trying to accept the reality of things. But then he remembered the injustice done to him by that place. So he couldn't help but ask himself, "Why should I become the Hokage of that place, the place that has done injustice to me. If becoming the Hokage of that place can make someone so spineless and helpless as to watch the injustice happen to an eight-years old child, and do nothing about it then I am glad that I will never become a Hokage or any Kage for the matter, I will become something greater. Besides it will probably take a miracle for me to possibly become even a Shinobi of that hateful place, let alone their precious spineless Hokage."

Naruto had never thought he will become a hateful person, he had always despised such men but now he has come to a realisation that he truly, from the bottom of his heart, had come to hate that place with a passion no less. For years he had faced difficulty being hated by those villagers and not being able to do anything about it, or find a way to make himself feel better. But now that he had started hating them back, he feels better, better than ever, he could sense the pain in his heart diminishing with each passing day. "I should have done this from the beginning, instead of trying to acquire their stupid acknowledgement. To think that I once dreamt of protecting and becoming the Hokage, a leader of that rotten and corrupted place. I feel sick of myself."

Those weeks in the ANBU detention facility had been the worst time of his entire life. All of those doubts kept swimming through his head. He cried so much and Inoichi Yamanaka had talked with him several times. He had begged him and had told him the truth that he was innocent, and that bastard Inoichi had assured him everytime that he will be released once that 'Drama' known as investigation is over, "I won't ever try to get the acknowledgment of that hateful village full of liars, and from now on the only thing I strive for is to survive and become strong enough to find that bastard culprit who had framed me and if possible kill that stupid Uchiha. I mean who kills their own family or clan for the matter. I won't ever do something so stupid afterall, all I have ever desired in my short life is a family of my own who would love me unconditionally."

His survival and gaining enough strength that nobody would ever dare to wrong him again and get away with it is now the only thing that mattered.

That was the answer he had came up with in the ANBU cell. He would survive and keep going, never giving up, no matter what. "That bastard Uchiha, and to some extent my stupid pranks were responsible for my imprisonment, then again, if the Uchiha Police Force wouldn't have been so mean to me then I wouldn't have tried to prank the entire clan and got caught up in this mess and later framed. Sakura-chan! No! No! Sakura b*tch is also responsible for this. If she would have understood that sasuke is a prick, who will never accept her love or she would have just accepted to date... but no she didn't... And now I am in this mess. I hope she cries herself to death now that her Sasuke-kun is dead with the rest of his accursed clan. Yes... Now I understand what I have to do... I have to kill the person who framed me and after that I will also kill that last Uchiha(Itachi) and end that wretched and despicable clan from existence." Naruto thought and chuckled.

{{{{A/N: Naruto doesn't know that Sasuke has survived the Uchiha Massacre.}}}}

And for some reason, he felt a strange sensation, a power like never before surge throughout his entire body at his proclamation. "It looks like even the gods agree with my decesion and bestowing upon me their power." thought Naruto in rejuvenation, unaware that he has just earned the respect, admiration and cooperation of the Nine-Tails.

The Nine-Tails has never been this ecstatic before in his existence. Why, because the clan that has been responsible for his imprisonment is now almost extinct. Those despicable red-eyed bastards, serves them right. And now his container has vowed to kill the last of them and make that clan officially extinct. So it has decided to do everything in it's power to make sure that the Uzumaki's vow becomes a reality, that's why it has instantly started to forcibly send it's own chakra to start the process of augmenting the overall abilities of it's container's body to extraordinary levels in comparison to a normal shinobi; which will eventually grant it's host a great deal of brute force, incredible speed, unbelievable durability, extraordinary agility and reflexes, remarkable vitality, powerful life-force as well as great healing prowess, along with astonishing sensory perception enabling him to detect chakra, seemingly regardless of the distance or obstructions; and the unique ability to sense negative emotions as well as natural energy. In addition, the process will also enhance his already formidable chakra reserves to extreme levels as well as his various senses granting him exceptional sight along with night vision, a keen sense of smell and impeccable hearing abilities along with retractable claws.

Naruto's body would also adapt to be able to accumulate a huge amount of chakra shortly after he has used up most of his own as well as concentrate it at any specific part of his body to produce Chakra Chains, or specifically into his arm to create chakra gauntlets. The process would also enable him to share his chakra with others, it will enable him to quickly replenish their stamina(aka chakra), heal nearly any wounds or revitalise the life-forces of any he touches physically; by moulding it to fit the recipient's unique chakra signature or improvise this ability to imitate someone else's chakra signature for infiltration purposes. Moreover, he would also be able to supercharge any Jutsu to increase the power of it's attack on a much greater scale, even on wisps of chakra.

Due to this process, Naruto is also going to inherit the Wind, Fire and Yang Release nature transformations of the Nine-Tails.

{{{A/N: Naruto notes he can absorb natural energy more quickly than usual while in Kurama Mode. So he will attain partial sage mode on his own as he will become capable of sensing Natural Energy.}}}

But there are side effects, due to this enhancements, Naruto's scent and chakra signature will completely change, his eyes' pupil will become permanently deep blood red in colour instead of the usual blue. And whenever he will become angry, his eyes will glow red. And since its currently possess only the Yang half of it's Chakra so there is a chance that sending its chakra into Naruto's body might cause excessive growth and, height and girth can also be affected as well significantly above average causing 'Gigantism', a rare growth disorder resulting in people being 7 to 9 ft in height.

But the process of enhancements has turned out to be very frustrating to the Nine-Tails because it had to try with all its might to just sent a meager portion of it's chakra into Naruto's body due to the power of the Fourth Hokage's Sealing Jutsu. "It would have been much simpler if that Old Monkey hadn't placed the three seals on top of that bastard Fourth Hokage's Sealing Jutsu to prevent the boy from accessing his or my own chakra." thought Nine-Tails angrily.

But the bijū knew unlike the Fourth Hokage's Sealing Jutsu, the ones used by the Third Hokage will degrade in time if it put some efforts from his side that's why he had stopped trying to shelve Naruto's chakra while giving his own and had decided to cooperate as well as remove all of the limitations that comes with its chakra's usage.

The Third Hokage had used two different kinds of Chakra Suppressing Seals to seal away Naruto's and the Nine-Tails' chakra, along with one other Suppression Seal as contingency. The one suppressing the Nine-Tails' Chakra is placed over the stomach, near the outer rim of Fourth Hokage's work.

The Nine-Tails loathed the boy, the Fourth Hokage and nearly everyone else but it will wholeheartedly help the boy if the said boy intends to end the Uchiha Clan, thus ending the accursed lineage of that disappointment Indra. It will continuously transfer its own chakra into the Uzumaki boy by moulding it to fit its container's unique chakra signature for the next few years thus slowly enhancing the overall abilities of its container's feeble body. It would made Naruto's Chakra control horrendous and his body a little sore for the first few months due to its Chakra's corrosive nature but it knew the soreness will lessen with each passing day until a time will come when Naruto's body will become totally compatible and accustomed to his chakra and will improve to superhuman levels. As for the Chakra control, well there's nothing it could do about it other than hope that it could somehow manages to contact the container and inform him about the various Chakra control exercises to improve it.

Naruto still hadn't completely gotten over his near breakdown in that ANBU cell and now he had to live here with other dangerous criminals to serve a long sentence in prison for a crime he didn't committed. A sentence that was one short of the numbers of years he had been alive. If it isn't for the prison guards assigning Naruto with something to do in order to keep his mind busy and occasionally allow him to step out for a while, he would have gone under a deep depression thinking back about the Uchiha Massacre he had witnessed, his times in the ANBU holding cell, the injustice done to him and thus he would have never been able to recover from that trauma.

To keep him busy, the warden had devised a task especially for him to do. The task is simple, a guard would come to fetch him from his cell in the basement and will then lead him to an equipment storage room on the first floor. Naruto would then spend the rest of the day in that room at a work bench repairing the tools that the prisoners uses for mining. The task consisted of three parts. The first part was to separate all of the tools that were not broken beyond repair and then sharpen them, mostly using an assortment of filing tools. Most of the workers either used a pickaxe or a shovel but there were also other smaller tools as well. The second part of Naruto's job was to replace the broken handles on tools with new handles or to reattach tool heads that had fallen off from their handles. The third part was to salvage what he could from tools that were no longer useful. Eventually, any tools that the miners uses worn down until it becomes useless.

On some other occasions, he would be tasked with cleaning the empty cells, kitchen, basement, hall, bathroom, etc. It was ridiculous, in Konohagakure, he never ever had cared to keep even his own apartment clean and now he had to not only clean his own cell but also others too plus the kitchen, basement, hall, bathroom, etc. Perhaps, he has been cursed by his beloved apartment or it's Karma, however it isn't his fault, he had always thought that there was no need that's why he had never bothered with cleanliness but now he completely understood the true value of keeping oneself and their surroundings neat and clean. Atleast, they aren't asking him to wash the dirty clothes of other prisoners.

The first week of his prison life was spent on learning the various tasks and exercises from the Chūnin guard. Once he had gotten the hang of them, Naruto was left to his own devices since the workload was enough to keep Naruto quite busy.

And of course, Naruto was actually being watched by the Chūnin gaurd all the time atleast for the first couple of weeks and he would be thoroughly checked once he was done with the work for the day to make sure that he didn't took something that could turn out to be dangerous with himself to his cell. He would only get one break during the working time for lunch in which a guard would bring him food and then after finishing it, he would get back to work. A five hour work a day wasn't really all that much troubling for most but Naruto was still only eight-years old and after working on all of the tools and cleaning the cells and other places, his limbs along with the rest of his body, for some reason he couldn't understand, were relatively sore each day and he had found it difficult to get the metal filings off his hands.

After his day job was over, Naruto would be escorted back to his cell and locked inside until the next morning when he would began his work again. This was everyday life for Naruto in the prison except for the weekends. Thus, this left him with a lot of free-time. Naruto filled this free-time with many different activities.

Usually on weekends, he starts the day with moving around the furniture of his room and make enough space for him to practice the katas that he had learned in the academy, along with all of the different exercises that had been shown to him in the academy.

After adjusting to prison life, Naruto had created a training regime for himself, he had started to wake up early and go through warm up exercises despite the protest from his sore body, followed by practicing the katas. Naruto had asked a prison gaurd for exercises to built up muscles with the excuse that it will help him better work in the prison and was astonished, since he had no idea that a person could do so many exercises indoors and wished that someone had told him about these sooner. The Chūnin gaurd had showed Naruto how to do a plethora of different exercises and even urged Naruto to come up with his own or try to turn the boring work at the prison into training. Surprisingly it had worked. The Chūnin gaurd had no choice but to cooperate with Naruto because all of them were instructed by the warden to keep the Jinchūriki as much busy as possible and not to anger him. Because the warden knew and is well aware of the fact that sometimes Jinchūriki could go berserk if angered and he had informed the other gaurds too of this fact.

In time, Naruto had learned enough to convert his work into training exercises and tried to outdo himself everyday thus it kept his work from being boring and monotonous. As the days passed, Naruto's exercise and training regime increased in the number of repetitions per day, especially for each muscle-building exercises.

For the past few days, Naruto had tried his best to remember as many lectures of the academy as possible which that hateful academy teacher Iruka whose eyes were full of contempt for him had taught at the academy, one of them is on the benefits of meditation in the life of a Shinobi and how it may help those who had failed to properly perform the Leaf Concentration Practice Exercise at the academy as well as improve the Chakra control and concentration. Apparently meditation was very beneficial for a Shinobi. Not only did it help with the chakra control, which is probably one of the most important aspect in the life of a Shinobi, but it could also help him strengthen his various senses and improve his sense of surroundings. Iruka had explained something about how through deep focus, a Shinobi could sharpen several of their five senses. Iruka had also shown all of them the basics of meditation.

The main reason why meditation helped with chakra control is because it helps a person get a better feel of their chakra, as a result, it makes it much easier to mold and channel the chakra throughout the body thus easier to control.

Shinobi could also train their sight and hearing to see and hear better in dark places but Naruto was already doing this on a daily basis. The entire prison basement was dark. He had a lamp but it did not provide much illumination to the rest of the cell and was only really useful when he was reading the few books and scrolls from the bookcase or those whom he acquired from the guards after using his puppy eyes on them. As for taste and smell, there was the kitchen. But he doesn't know how to increase them, moreover, he couldn't also understand the benifits of increasing the sense of taste and smell. The only use he could think of is probably to detect poison in the food. But how does one practice that, he doesn't have a single clue.

KONOHAGAKURE,

HOKAGE TOWER,

HOKAGE CHAMBER....

The Third Hokage was currently sitting in his chair, filling out the paperwork that was piled on his desk. It had been an entire month since Naruto was sentenced to the prison. The first bi-weekly report concerning the boy had arrived which the Third Hokage had requested from the Prison Warden to keep tabs on the boy, to make sure that Naruto won't do something as stupid as escaping from the Prison facility. The report was as good as it could be. The Shinobi guards had arranged something to keep Naruto busy during a portion of the day and the boy seemed to be adjusting well enough with his new life. That was good and he could only hope it doesn't change.

But the report from Dog on Naruto was disturbing. According to Dog, Naruto has drastically changed in the short amount of time between the day of judgement to the day of departure. The words Naruto had said to Dog about him has stung. It was hard to believe that his Naruto had lost complete faith in his beloved jiji and had started calling him Lord Third Hokage instead.

He wanted to help Naruto, he truly did from the bottom of his heart, share the pain and comfort him but he can't, there is only so much a Hokage can do, his hands are tied to the laws of the village.

He sighed and hoped that Naruto doesn't lose himself to the darkness, understand his constraints and forgive him.

He has started regretting his decision of agreeing to Inoichi's advice and staying away from Naruto until the day of departure and now it looks like it has backfired terribly.

He wanted to strangle Inoichi for giving him that stupid advice and himself for agreeing to it. But deep down he knew that Inoichi always had good intentions and wanted nothing more than to help him. Inoichi too wanted to help Naruto as much as him and had given the best of the advice, he was capable of in those times of civil unrest.

Afterall isn't it because of Inoichi's plan that Naruto's sentence has been reduced by many years and isn't it because of him that he could recall Naruto back to the village in just another four or five years using the excuse of his Jinchūriki status.

After nearly a month of waiting, Jiraiya had shown up in the village to inquire what his beloved Sensei wanted from him in this troubled times after the Uchiha Massacre which has significantly weakened Konohagakure. And when the Third Hokage had handed him the files regarding a case, and he read through it, they immediately had a pretty serious verbal battle. Jiraiya couldn't believe what he had read and was furious at what happened to his student's only son. He had thought it was just a rumour and that his Sensei would take care of it and Naruto. He also couldn't believe that something was wrong with Minato's Sealing Jutsu.

The fight had continued and lasted for a good hour. Jiraiya had asked why the boy's heritage had not been revealed in order to reduce the sentencing and keep him in the village. In Jiraiya's opinion, the Third Hokage's decesion regarding keeping Naruto's heritage a secret and to brief others only on what he(Third Hokage) thinks is appropriate for the other people to know while keeping the rest a secret as long as possible and hoping for the best is stupid. But since his Sensei still firmly believed that Naruto was safer with the surname Uzumaki and not Namikaze, who was he to say otherwise, afterall there was a reason this man was known as 'The Professor' throughout the Shinobi World and is still the Hokage of this village. In the end, Jiraiya did understand why his sensei was not able to do much regarding Naruto's case, especially after reading the reports on the various riots that took place in the village, a civil unrest would have been disastrous for Konoha just after the village has lost the entire Uchiha Clan. It is going to be very hard for Jiraiya to look at the village he had known throughout his life and had bleed for in the same way again.

After the fight had settled down, Jiraiya had informed the Third Hokage about what he currently knew of Orochimaru's whereabouts and the mercenary group known as the Akatsuki. The only other information he had on that group other than it's name is that Orochimaru and Itachi Uchiha along with eight others, all S-ranked criminals, no less, are the members of this mercenary group. It is the only definitive information he could find on Akatsuki. The other eight members were still a mystery at this point. The only good news that Jiraiya had was that Konoha currently did not have any outside threats, no village is going to make any move on them, although they are anxious.

Before Jiraiya left, the Third Hokage had informed him that he could visit Naruto at the prison if he wanted. But Jiraiya had frowned while saying that he would think about it besides the Third Hokage knew his student too well. Jiraiya had only briefly seen the boy once, and that was just to check his Seal days after he was born. Apparently his student had completely forgotten that he was the boy's godfather and that the name Naruto had been chosen out of Jiraiya's first book. "I guess all of us have made our own mistakes in regard to Naruto. All of my decisions seem to make his life worse in the end. Ironically enough Naruto might be better off and safer in prison than in this village." were the last thoughts of the Third Hokage before he resumed battling his mortal enemy known as the paperwork again.

The Chūnin Exams were near, Konoha is going to organise them and if he remembered correctly, Ibiki has asked for a leave of absence to better prepare his little brother Idate Morino for the upcoming Chūnin Exams, along with the help of the academy instructor Aoi Rokushō.....

ONE AND A HALF

MONTH LATER,

KONOHA STRICT

CORRECTION FACILITY,

NARUTO'S CELL....

Not much had changed for Naruto since the past month, It had now been more than a month since he had been incarcerated in the prison. He now had gained a profound new respect for those who had been imprisoned in the prison for more than seven years.

He still followed the same schedule for the most part of the day. He had managed to convince the guards, and the gaurds out of fear had allowed him out into the yard in the afternoon after the prisoners had finished working in the mine so that he could enjoy a bit of freedom outside after being imprisoned in that matchbox known as his cell and run around a bit as an exercise.

Although the view outside wasn't really that great. The sky was constantly dark no matter what the time of the day it was, the big walls prevented him from seeing much, and the outside had an eerie red glow probably due to the lava lake. Despite the downfalls, he was glad to be able to enjoy the freedom outside in the yard for about an hour each day. Following his training schedule, he made sure to try and get as many laps as he could around the triangular yard in a specific time frame. He was getting faster but it was a slow process given that he only had an hour each day and his entire body is still sore for some reason he couldn't understand.

Naruto had also been keeping up with his other activities. While working in the Mining Tools' storage room, he had decided to start using two broken pickaxe handle as swords to practice Kenjutsu. It is very difficult trying to be inconspicuous about practicing Kenjutsu while working, with the gate gaurd being present right outside the door of the storage room. But he had no other choice as he couldn't risk and try to sneak away such a large broken tool back to his cell, since the gaurd checked him on a daily basis. He had hid the broken handles in the equipment room, and once he would turn them into something shaped more like a sword and earn enough trust of the gate gaurd, he might try to take it back to his room, then he will be able to practice it however many hours he liked in his cell.

He could also practice Shurikenjutsu using the metal filings and due to the excavation going on which happens to be just near the basement, the sounds of practicing kunai and shuriken won't be noticed.

Naruto was currently meditating in his cell in the Indian-style. He was sitting on the floor with his back straight and his hands resting on his legs taking deep breaths. He was going to try and focus on hearing to differentiate the sounds coming from above and identify them to sharpen his ears since it was what he had made the least progress with aside from training his sight in the darkness. He had made some progress with his sense of smell since he began meditating and can differentiate between some of the different ingredients of the kitchen. As Naruto breathed in and out, he again tried to listen carefully and differentiate the various sounds.

He was just getting the hang of it when he heard very faint footsteps and a 'cluck' sound which indicated that somebody has opened his cell.

"Well! Well! How are you doing Naruto-san, one of the last surviving Uzumaki of the Uzumaki clan, no less, and a blond one at that?!" said the gaurd Shiro, the one assigned to watch over him.

"What?... Uzumaki clan! What are you talking about Shiro-san?! What kind of sick joke you are playing at? Because I am not amused." said a surprised and angry Naruto in calm demeanor.

"Huhhuh... I am not good at explanation and the gaurds are going to return in another twenty minutes so..." sighed Shiro and then suddenly in an astonishing speed, he grabbed Naruto's head like how a snake pounce a mice.