1 Chapter no.1 Prologue

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"What do you think you're doing out here Naruto?"

An out of breath and seemingly irate scar-faced, brown ponytail wearing chunin Umino Iruka asked rhetorically to a young blonde boy with whisker-marks on his cheeks. He already knew of course, everyone his level and higher knew.

Naruto had been caught leaving the Hokage Tower with the Forbidden Scroll of Seals, the scroll with tons of Konohagakure's secret and most well guarded techniques ever amassed.

This was right up there with treason, even for a child like Naruto. Hence why Iruka had hunted him down and found him deep inside of the forests outside of the village walls.

Said boy simply held his hand behind his neck, rubbing it while grinning sheepishly, "I found you Iruka-sensei!"

Iruka's eye twitched, "Idiot! I found you!" His expression then softened, "Naruto what on earth possessed you to take the scroll like that? Don't you know it's forbidden?"

Naruto chuckled like a goof for a moment before standing up and looking proud of himself, "You caught me fast Iruka-sensei, I only had time to learn one jutsu from the scroll." That one tidbit of information made Iruka's eyebrows rise under his headband in surprise, "But everything's okay now because I can graduate! That's how it works isn't it? I get the scroll and learn a jutsu from it and I can graduate even if I failed!"

There wasn't an inflection of lie in his voice at all that Iruka could decipher, not that Naruto could effectively lie to a ninja his level anyway, but he was completely sincere. He honestly believed what he was saying, "Naruto, who told you this? I have to tell you now right off that it's not true. Someone lied to you." Iruka asked, seeing Naruto's face drop from one of triumph to disbelief.

"What?" He said in a panicked voice, "B-But Mizuki-sensei was the one that gave me the test. He said it was a make-up for the graduation exam." Hearing the despair in his voice worked Iruka's heart for the boy. He was deceived by someone that should have had his best interests at heart and was to be used as a scapegoat. And what could Naruto do? To trust your sensei to do what was right was no sin, no crime. If it were than Mitarashi Anko would be locked away or dead by now for what her sensei had done while she was under him.

Iruka shut his eyes so that he could think. Naruto was lucky he was the first one to find him, others would have probably destroyed him before he even knew what was going on. Speaking of which, Iruka sent out a pulse of chakra so that he could see if anyone were around. It was one of Iruka's best techniques, sending out the pulse of chakra to get something of a momentary sonar image of his surroundings; the secret behind how he was able to tell if anyone in his class was slacking off or goofing off even when he had his back turned to the chalkboard.

Naruto looked up at Iruka, his eyes on the verge of tears, "I-Iruka-sensei am I in trouble?" Naruto had no idea what to do in case he were. Fight Iruka? Yeah, as if. He may have had a lot of bluster but he wasn't a fool when it came to his own capabilities as a ninja. He knew Iruka could pick him apart if necessary before he could even do the seals for his new super-strong technique… and what good would beating up Iruka do even if he could somehow pull it off? If he did that he definitely wouldn't be a ninja afterwards which meant no Hokage for him. There was no reason to even fight.

Iruka sighed before letting out another pulse of chakra, no one around yet. What was he going to do? He placed a hand on Naruto's hair, "To be frank, more than likely. But you were just doing what your sensei told you to do to become a ninja. If you come with me I swear on my status as a Konoha chunin that I'll do whatever I can to vouch for you and help you get out of this." He said with as much conviction as he could. He could see the subtle movements of Naruto's body, he was trying to decide whether he would run, fight, or just give up.

If he ran and Iruka couldn't catch him again the next person that found him would leave Naruto a bloody smear on the forest floor, and the sad thing about it would be that he really didn't think that too many people would care if that did indeed happen. Poor kid, Hokage-sama was right about him.

Naruto looked at Iruka intently. Mizuki had already lied to him today apparently, who's to say that Iruka-sensei wouldn't either? But he did give him his word. Not just his word, his word as a chunin of the village, and if there was one thing Naruto took seriously it was people giving their word, "Do you promise?"

Iruka gave him a reassuring smile, "I just gave you my word stupid." He sent out another pulse absentmindedly, he needed to get Naruto back to clear his name quick, as long as he kept doing this he was burning right through his chakra rapidly, "Now let's get going Naruto-." His pulse actually got something this time, and it was coming at them fast, "Naruto look out!" Iruka tackled Naruto to the ground just as a massive shuriken passed right where he had been standing a second earlier.

"Nice work Naruto." Mizuki stated as he appeared standing on a tree branch looking down at him and Iruka who had gotten back to his feet standing defensively in front of Naruto, "Now give me the scroll."

Iruka's fingers flexed right by his kunai and shuriken pouch on his thigh, "He already knows you deceived him Mizuki. You should have been a bit faster, or maybe you couldn't find your own decoy? Maybe you should be the one going back to the academy." Iruka took a moment to pat himself on the back for riling Mizuki up.

Mizuki sneered at Iruka before turning a kinder look to the young boy behind the scar-faced chunin, "Naruto did you ever wonder why everyone hates you? Everyone in the village knows about it but you."

Naruto glowered at Mizuki, "I don't care what you have to say you bastard! You tricked me! Now who knows what's going to happen to me. If you think you're getting this scroll from me you're going to have to walk over my cold, dead body to get it!"