Rude Awakenings

~553 ARS~

Konohagakure

Naruto Uzumaki was not having a good day. Scratch that. He wasn't having a good life. It all started on the day he was born. From what he was told, a giant nine-tailed fox attacked the village on that day. His hero, the Fourth Hokage, managed to defeat it at the cost of his life. Many other Shinobi and civilians died as well, including Naruto's parents, according to his Sarutobi-jiji.

Besides being an orphan, it was like he was treated as if it was some kind of ordeal to be around. Parents wouldn't let their kids play with him while most stores wouldn't even bother to sell to him. If he didn't find out about the shops in the Shinobi clans district, he probably would have starved to death from being price gouged over sub-par food.

The Shinobi in the village at least treated him neutrally, even if some clans were rather cold like the Hyuga and the Uchiha. He didn't really make his first friend until he met Old Man Sarutobi while young Naruto was fishing at the age of five. The old man was pretty weird when Naruto first met him but he was funny as well.

Through the old man, he met the Ichiraku's who were the first people to treat him with true kindness because there was a thought in his head that the old man had plans for Naruto so he was wary of Old Man Sarutobi at first. Young Naruto also was able to get into the Ninja Academy at age eight because of the Old Man. Turns out that the Old Man was the Hokage, the leader of the Konoha.

He was really excited to join the academy because he was always happy to learn something new and the stories his Jiji, as Naruto called him to make it seem like they were close, told just didn't cut it for him anymore. But much to his chagrin, it was mainly boring theory and history lessons that he had already heard from the Old Man and the funny mask people he learned later were the Anbu.

When they actually got to the fun stuff, it felt like the teachers were teaching him wrong, at least that is what his body was telling him. He got so tired of it that he barely paid attention to any of his classes anymore. His grades plummeted because of that.

One of the funny masked people, a cat he thinks, suggested pulling harmless pranks to train his practical skills that didn't involve chakra like stealth, trap-making, and escaping. It was the first time someone wanted to teach him without being forced to by their job.

The Cat Anbu later regretted that suggestion years down the line when she found out Naruto dyed all the Anbu uniforms pink except for hers and Weasel's at the age of nine. It turns out that the kid was an absolute natural at planning out ambush strategies and plans on the fly, which was confirmed by the Head Jonin, Shikaku Nara, through a game of shogi.

All those skills he developed on his own didn't help him one bit in the academy though. Due to him essentially checking out mentally while there and what he believed to be sabotage from most of the teachers that he couldn't prove, he was labeled the worst in his class.

He tried to graduate early two separate times over the years there, but failed both times due to his poor grades on tests he didn't recognize and his poor performance on the required jutsu to pass. He did well enough on the replacement jutsu, and he got really good with his transformation jutsu, but for the life of him, he couldn't get the clone jutsu to work no matter what he tried.

The worst part about that was that none of the teachers' advice helped him at all and the Anbu and Old Man Hokage couldn't help him because of some rule about favoritism.

Back to why today was a particularly bad day. He failed his third and final attempt at graduating the academy and becoming a genin. He thought he did well enough on the academic test even if he didn't understand some of the questions. He failed because of that same damn clone jutsu.

His class's teaching assistant, Mizuki, wanted to pass because he made a somewhat passable clone, even if it was way too pale, but the teacher in charge of his class, Iruka, who was the kindest teacher to him, had to fail him due to the clone not meeting the standard needed to pass.

The day started to look up when after the academy, Mizuki came up to Naruto and had a 'super secret make-up test' as he called it for Naruto to pass with. Naruto, ignoring the feeling in the back of his head he had whenever he was alone with Mizuki, asked what it was. Mizuki said it was quite simple. Naruto had to 'steal' a large scroll labeled as 'The Scroll of Seals' from the Hokage's office, take it to a shack in the woods on the outskirts of the village, and learn a technique from it before Mizuki finds him.

Naruto, hearing this, jumped at the opportunity to do this test because it seemed right up his alley with the skill set he personally excelled in. There was one hiccup in the test though. The Hokage caught him as he was taking the scroll, but Naruto was able to knock him out with his anti-pervert special, his 'Sexy Jutsu' as he called it.

When he got to the shack, it didn't take him long to find a jutsu to learn. He learned the 'Multi Shadow Clone Jutsu' in the matter of an hour and a half. He then had the absolutely brilliant idea to learn a second jutsu from the scroll since the first one was so easy for him, and this is where our story truly begins.

~3rd Person POV~

"Come on. Where are all the really cool jutsu? Shadow Clone, Shadow Shuriken, and Clone Explosion all sound boring. I need a really cool jutsu if I want to show up Sasuke-teme and impress Sakura-chan enough that she'll go on a date with me.", Naruto mutters loudly to himself as scans through the scroll for a second jutsu to learn.

He pauses at a weird one and says "Impure World Reincarnation, a jutsu that binds the soul of a deceased person to a living vessel, restoring them as they were in the last moments of their lives in order to do their summoner's bidding. Gross man. Who would want to control the dead? Whoever came up with that should have kept this Jutsu locked in their head and not written it down."

He kept scrolling down until he noticed something with his name on it. It was a seal with a note saying "for when Naruto finds out about his mother: place chakra infused blood on the seal". Naruto did that in no time flat just to get any semblance of information on either of his parents. Every time he asked the Hokage or the friendlier Anbu about his parents, they would say the same: "His parents were great people who died during the attack of the Nine-tails."

What came out of the seal on the 'Scroll of Seals' made him drop to the floor in slight disappointment. It was another scroll and two notes. One note was a letter to someone named Kushina from a relative named Mito. Maybe Kushina was his mother's name. He now had a possible name for his mother: Kushina Uzumaki.

The second was from the Hokage to…him. The note read:

"Naruto -

If you are reading this, it means I passed away before you became chunin or reached the age of 16. If you came across this before that, please reseal the scroll and return it to the current Hokage immediately. I cannot express this enough that I am not sure of what is inside the scroll. The only thing I do know is that only you or your possible kids could open it. It was apparently a gift to your mother Kushina from someone really close to her named Kensei. She received it when she was a young girl before she came to our village. Please do not open it until you are ready.

-3rd Hokage Hiruzen Sarutobi"

When Naruto finished reading the note, he crumpled the note and threw it on the ground. He mutters out, "I'll show who is ready whether he likes it or not." He tries to open the scroll but finds out he can't. He decides to do the same thing he did to get the gift out of the big scroll and places some chakra infused blood on the scroll.

The scroll shoots out his hand and unfurls into a large scroll then he realizes he was holding. What is shown on the scroll was a seal more complex than any he has seen, even the weird one he sometimes sees on his stomach. The seal glows a greenish-blue and releases a small torrent of smoke filling the area he was in. Slightly scared, Naruto hid behind a tree nearby.

As the smoke clears he sees someone down on one knee as if they were bowing to the daimyo or something. The person looks like a boy a couple years older than Naruto. The teen looks similar to someone he has seen before but couldn't place it.

The teen looked tall for age, even taller than even the Hokage, with somewhat shaggy red and grey hair in a similar style to his own spiky blonde. He has eyes sharp as a hawk with a mix of red and violet as their color. He was dressed in what Naruto could only describe as blueish-green samurai armor with a black Hitatare underneath. Instead of the usual Shinobi Sandals, he was wearing black Kegutsu that Naruto had once seen the Daimyo's Samurai wear. He also had a happuri on his face with the same spiral on it that Naruto had on his clothes.

The boy says to no one in particular in a deeper voice than Naruto was expecting, "Hey Kid. Come out from behind the tree. You ain't hiding from anybody, least of all a sensor like me." As Naruto comes out from behind the tree, the teen starts laughing and says while trying to stop laughing, "What kind of Shinobi wears a bright 'kill-me' orange jumpsuit? How can you even hide from the blind wearing that?"

Naruto gets angry and starts to march over to the teen while saying with a fair amount of bite, "What would a wannabe samurai know about being a Shinobi?" "Who said I was a samurai?", the teen whispers into Naruto's ear suddenly behind him.

Naruto falls in response and looks over to where the teen was and sees the teen's body fade into a mist. Naruto's eyes shine while he gets into the teen's face asking, "How did you do that? Was that pure speed or was it some kind of jutsu? If it was a jutsu you gotta teach me how to do it? Pleeeeaaaaasssseee?" He ended his series of questions with an exaggerated please like a little kid asking for a piece of candy.

The teen eyes lighten up and he chuckles. While plopping his hand on Naruto's head, he says, "Hehe, sure kid. I am only gonna teach you because you remind me of someone. What's your name anyway, kid?"

Naruto scratches the back of his head saying, "Well I'm Naruto…Naruto Uzumaki and I am gonna be Hokage someday." The teens eyes go tense once and he questions while pulling a weird kunai from nowhere placing it at Naruto's throat, "How are you an Uzumaki? There shouldn't be another named Uzumaki in Konoha besides Kushina and Lady Mito. Where is Kushina anyway? She should be here because my transport seal should have only activated with her blood."

Naruto's eyes go wide to the sudden shift in the teen's tone and his questions. He stammers out, "You knew my mom? What was she like? Did she even want me? Who are you anyway?"

The teen drops the knife and falls to his knees. With his head down, he asks Naruto quietly, "What year is it?" Naruto, confused by the question, offhandedly says, "It's 553 ARS I think. I was never really that good with dates."

The teen starts pounding the ground. He hits it harder and harder each time. By the fifth hit, he punctures the ground like it was made of gelatin. Naruto puts his hand on the teen's shoulder and asks, "Are you okay?"

The teen looks up at Naruto and sees the resemblance between him and Kushina. He says to Naruto, "It seems I have been in that scroll for over 25 years. I failed my final mission as a Shinobi of Uzushiogakure. My charge, your mother, died and there was nothing I could do to stop it."

He pulls Naruto into a hug while apologizing, "I am so sorry that you didn't have your mother growing up. How did she die?" Naruto loses his usual smirk and says rather subdued, "She died on the day I was born when the Nine-Tails attacked the village. I just found out her name just before you came out of the scroll."

The entire forest goes quiet. Not a sound was heard. "What do you mean you just learned her name today? You look like you're about 10-12 years old. What are you doing in the woods anyway?", the teen speaks in a tone as cold as ice.

Naruto, not bothered by his tone since some of the Anbu spoke like that, tells the story of why he is here, "...and that's when I came across the scroll you were in."

The teen stands up and places his thumb on Naruto's forehead and has his other hand in a half-ram position. "Hold still please. Ninja Art: Memory Walk Jutsu.", the teen says with no ice in his tone but pure neutrality while closing his eyes.

After a few minutes, the teen opens his eyes and Naruto can see the rage in them. Before Naruto could say anything, the teen whispers, "Pretend I wasn't here and I will answer any question you have about me or your mother, okay?" Naruto nods his head and the teen disappears just as Iruka comes through the tree line into the small clearing the shack was in.

{Canon story section}

Mizuki launches one of his large shurikens at Naruto while he shouts in a crazed tone, "Die Nine-Tailed Fox!". Iruka yells out, "Naruto get down." Naruto freezes and in the time the shuriken takes to reach him, Iruka takes him into his arms to take the shuriken himself, but it never comes.

Naruto looks over Iruka's shoulder while Iruka looks behind himself. They see the shuriken stopped by a figure just a foot from Iruka's back. Naruto recognizes the figure as the teen who came out of the scroll and yells out, "Hey, where did you disappear to?" He was going to continue his questioning but saw the teens face and stopped due to the burning hot rage on the teen's face that looked out of place.

Mizuki dropped down from the tree and mouths off, "What did the demon trick some other poor sap into thinking he was human like the Hokage and Iruka here?" The teen disappears and reappears with his fist in Mizuki's stomach launching the horribly mismatched chunin into the tree behind him leaving a sizable dent in said tree.

"Alright you pathetic waste of human shit, I am going to say one thing and you better fucking listen, alright?", the teen commands as chakra rolls off his body in large quantities. Mizuki groans in pain. The teen continues, "Naruto Uzumaki is no fucking demon and neither is the Nine-Tailed fox for that matter. Naruto Uzumaki is a member of the proud Uzumaki Clan of Uzushiogakure. This shit hole you call a village is lucky to have him call this dump home. By his command, I would raze this village to the ground if he so chooses to do so. But no, he wants to be the leader of this fucking cesspool of ungrateful idiots."

Despite the heavy killing intent in the air, Iruka manages to choke out, "Who are you?" The teen calms down slightly and says, "Looks like I forgot to introduce myself. Before I do that though, let me do this first." He flashes a few hand signs and slams a palm on the ground "Earth style: Clay Rock Prison Jutsu".

The earth turns to mud around Mizuki and clings to him solidifying in a dome shaped prison with only his head and hands showing. The teen then pulls a slip of paper out a pocket and places it in the back of Mizuki's head.

The teen plops down on the ground. The teen continues where he left off with a much calmer tone, "I am a son of the Fallen Village of Uzushiogakure. A proud member of both the Uzumaki Clan and its Protector clan, the Hogo Clan. I've had a few names on the battlefield, but my name is Kensei, Kensei Hogo. Now, I am the protector of the Heir to the Uzumaki Clan, Naruto Uzumaki."

Breaking the silence that followed Kensei's announcement, Naruto shouts out, "Wait so the gift you had for my mom was yourself!? How does that work anyway?!" "I would also like to know how that happened as well.", an older voice said, revealing itself to be the Hokage flanked by a team of Anbu.

"Sarutobi-jiji! When did you get here?" Naruto called out, yet again unable to read the tension in the air. Before the Hokage could respond to Naruto, his team of Anbu are suddenly buried up to their necks in the ground with the same paper tag attached to each of their heads as Mizuki.

A dozen blades made of chakra suddenly appear around Sarutobi at each of his vital points. "We do have a lot to talk about don't we, Little Monkey?" Kensei, who was now directly behind the old man, states coldly with his voice dripping with venom that causes Hiruzen to stiffen while thinking of the only other person to send that type of fear down his spine, "Sensei?!"