Scars

[Hokage Office]

Hiruzen was sitting in his office doing paperwork as usual. He hears a knock before a man tall man enters his room. It is Ibiki Morino.

"Hokage-sama I have the report on Naruto Uzumaki." He said

"What did you find Ibiki-kun?" Hiruzen asks.

"Well, it is much worse than we imagined Hokage-sama" He said and Hiruzen motioned to him to continue. Letting out a small sigh before he continued.

"Well, I will have to start from the beginning, when Naruto entered the orphanage as an infant, apart from the neglect that we suspected, they starved him for days. As he grew older they started to isolate him from other children, he was never taught anything and not allowed to speak to others either. Also, during the winter, they made him sleep out on the streets."

He took in a deep breath before continuing.

"There have been several attempts poisoning him but that didn't work so they just let him starve for weeks on end sometimes. After he turned 3, they never allowed him to sleep inside the orphanage always outside and..."

"Continue." Hiruzen said calmly.

"........many civilians regularly attacked him. Even the shinobi of our village joined them, and not just any shinobi even shinobi from our most respected clans. The matron does not know in detail the things they did to the boy." Ibiki said

"Neko" Hiruzen called out and a woman with a cat mask appeared in front of him.

"Have Naruto take a physical exam and a medical exam and Ibiki I want you to find any shinobi related to this and put them in prison, I don't care which clans they are from." Hiruzen said.

They both nodded before leaving.

"Hound" Hiruzen called out.

Hound body flickered in front of me.

"Anbu leave us." Hiruzen ordered his anbu. In an instant, all of them left.

"Hound I am going to assign you and your team an S-rank mission. You can pick your team, you can choose any anbu you want but remember to pick only those you trust." Hiruzen said in a stern voice.

"I am going to pass a decree that states that Naruto must be referred to as 'Gojo' from henceforth. This will be his name on all official documents until he attends the academy. Divulging any information on his name or place of residence will be punishable by death." Hiruzen said.

"Hokage-sama if I may ask, why are we doing this?" Hound asked.

"So that people do not know Naruto has left the orphanage and where he is staying." Hiruzen said.

"Won't people just find out what's going on, just like they found out he was the Kyuubi jinchuriki?" Hound asked.

"Most people do not know yet that Naruto is living by himself and well, most people do not care either. It will be a week or two before everyone realizes Naruto is living by himself and more time before they find out where he lives. This is essentially a ploy to buy some time and catch some moles." The Hokage said before taking a drag of his pipe

"You see, the identity of the Kyuubi jinchuriki was supposed to be a secret but it was leaked by someone in the council. We had too many suspects at the time, so we could not pinpoint who leaked the info. That is where you come in, I want you and your team to spy on everyone on the council except the clan heads and Danzo. If you find them doing anything suspicious restrain them and bring them directly to me. This mission will have a duration of at least two weeks. Do you understand? " Hiruzen asked.

"Yes, Hokage-sama." Hound said and left.

[A few hours later]

There is a knock on Hiruzen's door. A woman comes in, wearing a white coat over her outfit. She looked like someone from the hospital.

"Hokage-sama I have the medical report on Naruto Uzumaki." she said

"What did you find?" Hiruzen asks.

"Well, he does not have any diseases, ailments, or any injuries that need to be treated. But we have identified at least 43 different scars on his body along with several burn marks all over his body. It appears as if almost none of them have been treated by a professional or by anybody for that matter. None of them appear to be accidental either. When I asked the patient how he got his injuries, he said 'I fell down the stairs.... many times.'" she said.

Hiruzen let out a long sigh.

"I would recommend at least a session or two with a therapist considering the abuse and trauma." she said.

"Thank you." Hiruzen said and the lady left the room.

"Random Anbu" Hiruzen called out.

An anbu appeared in front of Hiruzen.

"Tell Inoichi-san to clear up his schedule for tomorrow, and meet me in my office." Hiruzen said and the anbu nodded.

[Next day]

Hiruzen and Inoichi Yamanaka are sitting in the Hokage's office.

"Inoichi-san, you have a session with someone today." Hiruzen said before taking a drag from his pipe.

"I do not understand why you have chosen me Hokage-sama, anyone else, from my clan, would qualify for conducting a psychiatric evaluation." Inoichi said.

"Well, I want you to evaluate Gojo." Hiruzen said to the clan head. The clan head nodded understanding why he was called instead of someone else.

"You will only tell me what you think. I want no record of Gojo's evaluation. Is that clear?" Hiruzen said and the clan head nodded again.

[Naruto's apartment]

Naruto was eating in his apartment, as he was reading a book, he got from the library.

'Hmm.... yesterday the doctor told me I was very weak and frail, hope this book helps... A proper diet and exercise huh?.... maybe I should give it a try.' Naruto thought as he was reading the book.

Naruto finishes his food and starts doing the exercises he saw in the book.

'Well, the book says that beginners should not overdo it while exercising... but I am not really tired... maybe I should keep going.' Naruto thought.

After an hour of exercising, Naruto sat on the floor, tired. As he was reaching for the book to read more, his head started hurting.

'Ahh...this again.' Gojo thought as he held his head in his hands.

'Maybe I should have told the doctor about these headaches.' Gojo thought as he lay on the ground and closed his eyes. Just as he closed his eyes, he felt a little relieved and slowly the headache went away.

'Every time I get tired, I get a headache.... closing my eyes makes it go away.....?....this is weird I should do more research about it before telling anyone.' Gojo thought as he slowly sat up.

'Library should have some books about stuff like this.' Gojo thought as got up and went towards the library.

[At the library after some time]

'Hmm.... well, it appears my eyes are not normal.....I can see much farther than the average eye... my eyes appear to be special... I do not think anyone should know about this.... yet.' Gojo thought and closed the book he was reading and put it back, as he was walking around the library he went over to a section he had never gone before the shinobi section.

There were books about the various aspects of a shinobi's life, from camping to scouting to tracking, of course not in detail (academy level). He picked up one of the books and started reading it and as time went on, he kept reading and reading. The boy read several books within a couple of hours.

He learned about ninja weapons such as kunai, shuriken, senbon, etc, and ninja tools such as scrolls, smoke bombs, etc.

Naruto found himself fascinated by the lives shinobi lived and their motivations to live as they did. He had read about the Hokage and their ambitions and motivations and admired them for that, but reading about ordinary shinobi also taught him many things. He realized that one of the main reasons people became shinobi was to protect themselves and the people precious to them.

'I need to be a shinobi too if I want to survive in this world' Naruto thought to himself as he put the book back. As he was putting the book back, another book caught his eye, 'Dojutsu 101'.

[15 minutes later]

'Hmm... so let's see, every dojutsu awakens in a different way huh..... and overuse of them can cause chakra exhaustion and headaches....... well I do get headaches and I know my eyes are not normal so it might be a dojutsu...?!.... but my eyes do not look like anything in the book.... ok maybe it is not from Konoha.' Naruto thought as he closed the book and started walking out of the library trying to process all the new things he had learned.

He walked over to Ichiraku's and had a couple of bowls of ramen and started walking towards his apartment.

On his way, he could see something approaching him fast but before he could do anything it hit him on the shoulder and he screamed out in pain when he looked, there was a kunai in his left shoulder. He looked back in the direction where it came from and saw several more coming towards him.

But before he could do anything a person appeared in front of him and blocked all the kunai flying towards him.

"Uzumaki-san are you fine?" a familiar voice asked.

"Y-yes Neko-san I am fine." he said as he dropped to one knee.

"Do not touch the kunai Uzumaki-san, let me handle this." she said as she bent down, removed the kunai, and used some medical ninjutsu.

'This feels a bit better.' Naruto thought.

"Uzumaki-san I have stopped the bleeding, I will take you to the hospital to get it checked out." she said and Naruto weakly nodded.

She picked him up and took him to the hospital.

At the hospital, she was shocked to find the wound had already healed.

"Well, the wound has already healed considerably so I will just wrap it up and it will be fine just some scarring." she said as she walked out of the room.

"u-um Neko-san it feels better now, could I go home?" Naruto asked her.

"Sorry, Uzumaki-san we have some work today as well." Neko said.

Naruto let out a tired sigh before saying, "I understand".