Chapter Seven: revenge;
"Send them in." Hiruzen was hoping today would be a nice day. No more reports of rogue ninja trying to kidnap children, and without some unfortunate genin team running into one of the swordsmen of the mist, or a local administrator in contact with known spies.
Today was not that day. Today, Hiruzen had to deal with a bunch of brats making a prank sound like treason. A well deserved prank for some of them, at that. And for the ones caught in the crossfire, it was completely harmless.
Another group of young men came into his office, the third group since lunch. A genin team. One without any clan members and without its Jonin instructor. A team that for 2 years has had a steady, if uneventful track record. There was only one member of the team Hiruzen even paid attention to.
"Umino, Iruka..." Hiruzen read out loud off of a file like he hadn't known who the boy is. This young man had volunteered to fight the nine-tails but could only watch as his parents fought and died for his village. He took a drag of his pipe and stared down at the boy before releasing a cloud of smoke thick enough to obscure his face.
"You do realize I'm not seeing every team that comes demanding a response don't you? I'm only seeing those that may have a grudge so I'll hear what you have to say but those two won't speak unless I ask them something." - "Lord Hokage!"
"So, what did the boy do to you?" Hiruzen asked, Ignoring Iruka's green hair and paint splattered vest. He even ignored the outburst from the boy that apparently hadn't learnt the good sense to control his outbursts.
"Lord third, that boy-" - "I told you not to speak. I don't see any paint on you, and none of you are injured. If anyone has been sent to the hospital, I haven't heard of it, so what emergency gives you the excuse to speak out of turn young man?"
"I-I apologize lord third..."
"Hokage-sama, I was a victim of one of the various traps that boy left for us on the training grounds. I had always heard he was a trouble maker, but I didn't think I'd be left hanging in a tree waiting for someone to come along just to have the brat go out of his way to dump paint on me and run off. If you've been dealing with other people coming in to complain, hasn't he taken this too far?"
"Umino... Do you even know what Naruto has achieved today? Let me tell you..."
---Earlier that day, before dawn---
Naruto was ready, it was time to head out, and Naruto had three targets to hit, before he would move on to sabotage the training equipment.
"You'll help me, right mom?" - "Yes, sweetie. Mom will help you as a fox and they will never see you coming. It's time to pay them back."
Naruto was wearing his regular outfit, he wouldn't need to worry about standing out because he would be moving around as a fox. He would only be setting things up as himself, and running away from people as himself would only help him complete all his tasks before the village could catch him.
Naruto wasted no time. He picked up his supplies and left what he wouldn't need for later, anything he was carrying would transform with him. One last check that he was ready, and he transformed, letting Kushina lead him outside.
Kushina took care to make sure no one was watching as she slinked out of her son's window. There was that Anbu monitoring him, but she neither could, nor cared to try to evade him. He wouldn't step in unless Naruto tried to leave the village or hurt anybody anyways.
Carefully, she gauged the distance and leapt onto the roof of a neighbor's house, it was time to put this form's tracking skills to the test. Kushina sat perfectly still on the roof, letting the breeze blow through her hair and waited. 'There it is!'
"Watch closely Naruto, feel what I'm feeling. Once you are older, I'm sure you'll get good enough to do the same." - "Yes, mom. I'll be the best shinobi this village has ever seen."
Kushina chuckled to herself, a light yipping escaping her small form. The skill she was using was an advanced application of chakra. She couldn't mold it to perform jutsu with the Obake mask on, but she could still manipulate its shape and flow. Her chakra enhanced smell told her exactly where that conman lived.
She was already up and running, sprinting across rooftops, and it wasn't long before the building was in sight. The man that accused her son of stealing his wallet was inside. A barracks styled apartment building, it clearly catered to clanless shinobi. The style was plain and uniform, designed for individual anonymity, and in a building full of shinobi, looking around to find your target would be stupid and dangerous.
Good thing Kushina didn't need to look around, she already knew where the scumbag was, and he certainly wasn't a sensor. Kushina knew who the sensors were, because they would eventually find themselves on Naruto's street, looking to start some trouble, but the Anbu posted outside would always deter them.
She quickly hopped onto the man's window sill and looked around. 'Not a Jonin then... but also a Jonin would think twice before antagonizing the Hokage by framing an orphan as a criminal and making a scene.'
There was no seal to protect the window or even the door across the room. Only a wire tied to his finger to wake him up if they were opened. There was no summon to guard him, and if he was still asleep now with something as obvious as her on his window sill, there was just no way the man could qualify as a Jonin. 'Hell, I'd bet he's lower ranks even among the chunin. Even they have some summon or Fuinjutsu to guard them at night. Most of them at least.'
The ninja world was treacherous. No Jonin was so vulnerable, few Chunin even were, and those that were had been newly promoted unlike this scum. On top of that, It was almost mandatory to become proficient in Fuinjutsu to become a Jonin, at least in all the essential Fuinjutsu. Any Chunin that ever cared about their life would learn the life preserving Fuinjutsu available at the very least, and any that wanted to achieve Takubetsu Jonin, let alone Jonin, would go out of their way to train in it.
The conman remained blissfully unaware as a fox snuck into his apartment. Kushina had used the leaf sticking technique to prevent the wire from alerting the amateur to her presence. She proceeded to completely ignore the ninja snoring peacefully on his bed, as well as the Anbu paying infinitely more attention to her. She found the Chunin's ID on the dresser.
She didn't really care what it said, because if anything, all she'd see is some worthless sod with no notable achievements. Instead, she slid the fake ID she created over his real one. It had nothing but a doodle of a turd and read, I Like To Use Little Kids As Scapegoats For Theft, But Don't Tell Anyone, Your Cut Is Inside!
All the rumors coming out about her son couldn't have been just nothing, and she didn't know who was blaming her son for money going missing, but this was definitely the type of guy that would steal money while disguised as her son, so she was hoping he would be dumb enough to hand his ID with his wallet over to his superior to let everyone know to ask questions about any unaccounted for money on his part.
"Okay Naruto, Your turn to set up your own prank." Kushina told her son after she snuck out the door and reversed the transformation to give Naruto control back.
"On it!" Naruto First set down the bundle of sealed cans of paint and fumbled around until he found a nice, ugly, pink colored one. Next he jumped and grabbed the ledge of the doorframe to move a ceiling panel to the side just enough to fit the can of paint. Then, he popped the lid. tied a rope around it, and pulled the rope taught over a pipe, before tying it to the door handle.
Kushina wasn't sure this trap would get him, but he proved himself incompetent so far so, who really knew? The real revenge was his ID anyways. Naruto snuck out of the building and ran into an alley before activating the Obake mask again. "So mom, How did I do? Pretty awesome Right?"
"Hmm, It'll work. Don't get cocky though Naruto! Until you can set traps up without anyone being the wiser, you don't have the right to be cocky. Right now, we're relying on other ninja to find your prank funny enough not to warn him that it's there. For now though, I'm proud of you kiddo."
"Whatever! I'll get there someday, and that'll teach them not to spread lies about Uzumaki Naruto!" - "Exactly so."
Her next target was the market, specifically the street the mask shop salesman lived and operated his store out of. This was no ninja stronghold, all the people here would be civilians. Afterall, what ninja would resign themselves to selling masks or running a tea shop, or selling stationary? No, Kushina's intervention simply wasn't necessary.
She quickly looked for a good spot, and decided two water towers were the optimal place to hang the banner from. Climbing the walls of the buildings until she reached the roof, she released the transformation just as she got him into position. The banner would be clearly visible from the entrance of the street.
"Aah! Almost slipped!" Naruto wasn't used to these heights and had to wait a moment to make sure no one had come out to check on the noise he had just made. 'Should have released the transformation just a bit further away from the edge...' Kushina mused.
With a few comical *Aaht*'s and *Woah*'s, Naruto managed to secure one side of the banner to the railings on the east side water tower. He was still clinging on for dear life when his mother berated him.
"Are you going to stand there or are you going to jump across? If you're not jumping, activate the mask again and your mom will do it for you."
"Okay, okay. I'll jump, but if I fall you better save us!" - "Duh." *Snickers*
"Somehow, I wonder if you should encourage your son to jump off buildings." - "Leave the parenting to me sweetie. Besides, how else will you learn to become a ninja? Low buildings, fences, and walls just aren't good enough. Also, I'm here, what's the worst that can happen?"
"I can fall and die! I could-"-"Listen to your mother and quit stalling or I won't catch you. At this height I'll have time to heal you so you don't die."
"How do you do that anyway?" Naruto said before winding up and jumping off the edge of the roof. The opposing ledge approaching rapidly and Naruto was scared because the transformation wasn't happening even though he tried to activate it. His mom was stopping him. "MOM!"
*Thump* Naruto collided with the building flopping over the ledge, half his body still dangling over the ledge. He quickly scrambled to get as far away from the ledge as possible. "You were holding the other end of the banner you idiot."
"You're still holding it. You were never going to fall in the first place, and if you had, you would have been fine. The only thing I could ask to improve is your footwork. Had you not panicked, you could have landed that like I taught you! You really can be dense sometimes, Naruto!"
"I, uh, yeah. Sorry." - "Yeah, yeah. Now tie that sign up there before whoever you just woke up tries the roof access and finds you here."
Naruto simply held his gripes, and climbed the water tower. The climb was treacherous and one few civilians would be willing to make. They would definitely have to hire some genin team to do it, and it would be a perfect task for them.
It didn't take as long to secure the other end of the banner that read: Big Business! A Street That Likes To Entertain Itself By Watching The Mask Shop Owner Beat On Toddlers And Push Them To The Dirt! Not One Of Them Stands Up For Little Kids! Happy Shopping!
Naruto also painted a crude self portrait of him waving and smiling on the banner. It just wouldn't mean anything if no one realized he had done it. The same routine of running away and his mother taking over to track the next target led Naruto to the forest at the edge of town. Kushina was stalking a rabbit from the dark, following it. She could smell its litter on it.
"Why do we need a rabbit, mom? I thought we were going to prank that guy?" - "The rabbit IS the prank Naruto. We're going to gift them to his daughter in his name."
"Them?" - "They need to be kits, Naruto, and yes, them, because we're getting her two. One may be enough, but two is the limit we can give her where her dad won't have to take them away."
"Won't we be taking them away from their mother?" - "Does abandon their kits somewhat young and most of them end up eaten by wolves, foxes, and large birds. Some does even eat their young. We're doing them a favor really, just don't expect them to thank you for it."
10 minutes later and Kushina had set up her trap and captured a few of the bunnies in a cage. Now, she only needed to carry them to their new home. That didn't take long either, and as soon as they arrived she released the transformation so Naruto could deliver the girl's present with the note to her window. She wasn't going to do everything for him after all.
The note was another trap. It specifically named her dad as the one gifting the rabbits to her, but it also told her that she needed to feed the rabbits herself with the vegetables they have, and the longer she can go without needing one of them to step in, the better. Soon, she would be squirreling away all those vegetables she always hated to give to her new friends, and when her dad finds out he'll have to face a daughter asking him why he would take her gifts away when he promised she could keep them if she took care of them.
A diabolical plan, if Kushina had ever seen one. She, as a parent herself, knew exactly what position she was putting this father in, and she only had a modicum of pity for the man. If it wasn't involuntary, she wouldn't have any at all. On top of that, she got to make a little girl very happy for the bargain price of free, and forcing the jerk who was so rude to her boy back then, to pay to take care of animals he never asked for, was nice too.
Naruto was careful. He didn't want to get caught both this late, and early in the game. He tiptoed as slow as he could manage into their yard, and made his way around trying to find the right window. Soon enough, he found a window he was willing to bet was hers. There was a toy on the window sill at least.
With one leap, he managed to get his arm on her sill and hoist himself up, careful to avoid what he now saw as the little plushy shark that stood vigil against the night. The girl was sleeping, Naruto remembered her. She hadn't done anything mean to him, but the way her father had treated him two years ago never sat right. That's why, Naruto was perfectly happy punishing the father by rewarding the daughter.
"Yosh! With that over with, time for the training grounds to get under way." - "You remember, right?"
"Yeah mom, You won't help me in this part because I have to learn to take things into my own hands..." - "Good. I'll limit your chakra so you can use the academy three."
"A lot of good that'll do me, I'm still not any good at those. My clones look nothing like me. I'm best at the substitution Jutsu, and that isn't saying much." - "Do you not want you're mother's freely given help!?"
"No, I definitely want your help, I'm shutting up now." - "I'll hold my breath."
"Hey!!!" - "Aaaand perfectly safe. You certainly didn't make that hard for me. Besides, you actually forgot something"
"What?" - "Hokage mountain, You need to stop by there before hitting the ninja training grounds."
Naruto hadn't actually forgotten, he just assumed it came last, but he wasn't going to keep arguing with her. He may literally have all day to waste on that, but he didn't have it in him to spend all day doing it.
Kushina had forced Naruto to study the Kage, and at first tried to make him tone down the vandalism by painting their portraits over their faces, but ultimately she found it funny that he was going to declare his intention to surpass all of them by drawing his faces over them. "Like this.. and That, and done! Now they all look like me, hahahahah! Take that dinosaurs! It won't be long before I'm the strongest that ever lived!"
'He's absorbed in himself again. I'm really glad he can be this positive and keep looking forward, even if he expresses that through vandalism.' She mused watching her son make a fool out of himself, like painting some old rock could suddenly turn him into a god among men.
"Come on, now you can prank the genin and the chunin." - "Alright."
Naruto then went on to the individual training fields and meddled with the equipment. He placed the weak body bind seal on every rope. Ninjas that come to practice knots or the escape jutsu would find themselves bound far more securely than they ever intended. And, someone would have to know at least the basics of Fuinjutsu to break it.
He then used the common repair seal intentionally badly to compromise the integrity of the targets and logs used for jutsu practice. The ninja would find their jutsu uncommonly powerful until they managed to use their brains to realize the field had been meddled with. Finally, he set up several snare traps that would catch ninja in nets, all prepared with the weak body bind seal.
Preparing had been a blast, but what he found fun most of all, was running to his victims and splashing them with the various cans of paint he had prepared. Naruto was quickly discovered, so he switched identities with other ninja to approach the other victims trapped in nets and bondage of their own design just to dump paint on them and run away.
Pretty soon, everyone was blaming each other. It wouldn't last forever as the smarter ones put it all together but Naruto would add to the chaos by leaving empty cans of paint on several chunin he saw break the seals. He left them in bags mostly, but also made sure to retrieve more cans from home to leave them outside several apartments for different ninja. Soon, it would look like a conspiracy, until they would come to blame the usual suspect, Naruto.
It wouldn't be until noon that he would be caught and brought in for questioning. The ninja that caught him weren't exactly friendly, but they weren't dumb enough to hurt the boy
-
"How have you been Naruto" - "I'd say I've been doing just fine. I eat well and plenty of people have it worse than me. Why? You not going to ask what I did old man?"
"I know what you did more or less. I'm more interested in why you did it. Not many people will like you you for vandalizing the monument or accusing an entire street of child abuse." - "That's their problem!"
"Really?" - "Yeah. They decided they didn't like me long before they ever knew me. Most of them still don't know me but they all decide to listen to baseless rumors, So I Say, WHO NEEDS THEM!?"
"They'll respect me one day anyways, they'll have to!"
"How will you achieve that, Naruto?" - "Hard work! I'll work harder than all those stuck up, snobbish, bullies, with their secret techniques, and clan training, and I'll become the strongest shinobi that ever came out of the leaf village! If they are going to hate me, they can go sit in the corner and do that by themselves!"
"I have no time to waste on their hatred, so today I declare war on their expectations. They can throw their opinions away because one day, I'm going to become hokage! Believe it!" - "How does any of this achieve that Naruto?"
"Today alone, I tricked at least a dozen shinobi into tying themselves up and thinking they were strong for destroying compromised targets, fooled them into believing someone else did it, and more! I outed that stupid mask shop salesman as a liar and the child abuser he is, got revenge on that scam artist for framing me, and gave a little girl a couple of pet rabbits as revenge to the first man who was rude to me for no reason!"
"What about your caretaker? He only took care of you to the bare minimum of his job, I can't imagine he was nice to you."
"I'm pretty sure he was punished by having to take care of me, and he helped me at least a little to get my independence, so he doesn't really count. He's miserable enough to punish himself just by existing. The point is I won! And When, I become a shinobi, it won't be long before every ninja will know my name and owe me more respect than I'm sure they ever wanted to give me."
Hiruzen had a lot to think about, so he just leaned back and lit his pipe. On one hand, his ninjas were going to cause a major headache over this, but from now on, at least, they'll check their training equipment before using it. It's not like Naruto could pull the same stunt twice. Besides, his disguise was actually pretty bad, and the only reason people believed anyone else could be responsible is only a few actually saw Naruto, and an orphan learning the henge no jutsu, no matter how bad at it, and at the age of three, was just unprecedented. He was talented.
"Ok, I've decided. I can't really punish you, so I'll have you clean up your own mess. You have one week to wash off the monument of the Hokage and then I'll send you on errands to get the replacement equipment for the targets you broke and resupply for a month. During that time, you are not allowed to meddle with the equipment, understand?"
"Yes, sir." At first Naruto wanted to insult the old man when it was those ninja who had started this whole mess by slandering him but his mother had strictly warned him to be respectful and told him he would be punished ahead of time.
"I expected you to yell at me for punishing you at all. Good job Naruto, self control is the most useful tool on the path to becoming a fine shinobi. Nobody else can make you Hokage though, Naruto, only you can do that, and only by becoming a hero worthy of people's respect first will you achieve it."
"Of course, Gramps! Everything I've earned has taken hard work! I fish by myself and gather worms to sell myself. I gather mushrooms and berries and collect change people have dropped on the ground just to have spending money! I'm not about to quit any time soon. Still, they should respect me for who I am. How many of their brats work as hard or know as much as me? I'm already ahead of them."
"Maybe you are, but most people wouldn't let their kids learn a dangerous thing like Fuinjutsu, or let them practice Ninjutsu at the age of 3, or even Taijutsu as much as you have learned. At most, you should be learning forms, not practicing as hard and running as much and as far as you do every day. Any one else would end up hurting themselves."
"Is that because I'm an Uzumaki? They have strong bodies don't they?" - "Yes, Naruto, they do. How did you know that though? I thought you had the idea you weren't a clan kid?"
"I'm not! I have no secret legacy to lean on or special Taijutsu. Everything, I learned, was from the library and as far as I know, I'm the last Uzumaki left. I'm not even sure who my father or mother were or why I'm here. I'm not old enough to be from the Uzumaki village, and all of them were supposed to have red hair so I have to be at least half not an Uzumaki."
"Yes, Naruto, you're not a full Uzumaki. That's enough of that though, I have other's I need to talk to and you need to get to cleaning all that paint."
Hiruzen seemed to visibly age after the dismissal, but Naruto thought it was nothing more than an old man dealing with paperwork. and nothing else. In truth, Hiruzen just didn't want to think about Naruto's family anymore, and the guilt was getting to him. Both the Uzumaki village, and Naruto's parents, were let down during his tenure as hokage.
---Back in the present---
"Umino Iruka, Naruto hurt no one, and he is out that window right now scrubbing down the four Hokage's faces. That boy, despite facing discrimination, and vicious lies, from several shinobi, did nothing more than pull a prank on the village for alienating him. That boy didn't even think of harming anybody for revenge. Would you be so collected at his age and his position?"
"H-Hokage! I wouldn't have done it in the first place!" - "Wouldn't you? That boy has been pushed to the street multiple times for nothing more than existing. He has been shunned from stores with more closed off and ignorant owners, and only one person in the whole of Konoha has shown him real charity. Wouldn't you want revenge?"
"Sir, I don't know. I don't think I would do this, especially not extending it to people who never hurt me."
"It's not just the people who hurt him, Iruka, it's the rest of you that spread the rumors. No one trusts the boy because of lies that certain people told, but the rest of you spread. If Naruto really were a mindless beast, we wouldn't have Jinchuriki in the first place, but you all treat the boy who is barely old enough to walk outside, as an animal that would attack you on sight. The boy didn't target any innocents"
"Sir, the boy is dangerous." - "You don't even know the boy. I'll take no more complaints about this from you. Leave it to the village elders to decide if he is even dangerous or how much. Jinchuriki have existed since long before the leaf, and two Hokages were married to the nine tails Jinchuriki of their time."
"It was the first Hokage who distributed the other tailed beasts to the other villages in the first place. All to achieve peace by maintaining the balance of power between the nations. If you had your way, should we just release the nine-tails to be kept by our enemies and brought against us to lay us low once again?"
"We don't need to release him, no. I'm sorry, it's not my place." - "No, it isn't."
Iruka had a lot to think about when he left the Hokage's office. He wasn't ready to trust the beast that wiped out his own family along with so many others. Naruto was the demon fox, that was a fact. Jinchuriki needed to be kept under control. They have a long history of going berserk and killing people before they can be subdued. Just as many, if not more Jinchuriki, died from losing control as did by natural causes after taming their tailed beast. They aren't trustworthy.
Iruka simply clenched his fist and shook his head. It wasn't worth thinking about. It wasn't his problem. It's not like the boy was his responsibility anyways. The boy would go on to cause more trouble, he was sure of it. There was no way everyone was lying. The boy was a waste of time that he thought better locked up in a temple and kept there like the weapon he was.