"Uzumaki Naruto!" In the Academy of the Village Hidden in the Leaves a young boy with blond hair and bright blue eyes jumped in surprise, clutching a small stack of papers tightly in his fists. He'd been waiting in line for hours it seemed like, and he'd zoned out a while ago. 

He hadn't even noticed when the girl in front of him went in. Quickly scurrying forward into the examination room, he passed by the girl wiping furiously at her eyes and sniffling.

The room inside was typical Academy fare, as far as Naruto was concerned. A row of benches and desks sloping down to an open area at the bottom that the instructor had set up his desk at, a chalkboard, a few boxes of currently unused school supplies, and not much else. 

Naruto quickly bounded down the stairs two at a time, coming to a halt right in front of the instructor's desk and thrusting his papers in the man's face. The instructor, an aged chunin with a bandana wrapped around his head and full chunin getup, took them with an amused grin.

Naruto bounced eagerly on the balls of his feet while the man looked them over, more than ready to ace this test and take his first step to becoming a real life ninja. After an eternity of waiting the chunin instructor nodded sharply and shifted the paperwork to the side and stood up, walking around his desk to the middle of the open floor, gesturing for Naruto to follow.

"Now, this test is rather simple," he explained. "All you need to do is perform the Ram seal and channel your chakra. I'll take care of the rest," he winked. Naruto eagerly nodded, and the instructor carefully showed him how to form the seal, poking and prodding at his hands until he was satisfied. Stepping back, he crossed his arms.

"Now close your eyes and relax. Make sure you keep your hands in that position, and turn your focus inward. When your stomach starts tingling, I want you to tell me, okay?" The chunin asked. Naruto nodded firmly, eyes clenched tightly shut, and focused.

At first he didn't feel anything. Just the aching in his feet from standing in line so long and the queasy feeling in his stomach from eating too much ramen and the wind drifting in through the window. After a minute he started to panic, just a bit. He felt a bead of sweat burn a trail down his whiskered cheek, felt the queasy feeling in his stomach intensify, felt the instructor's gaze burning a hole through his head. And then he felt it.

"I-I've got it," he whispered, relief flooding through him. It wasn't exactly like the instructor had said. It didn't tingle in his stomach, instead making him feel light and sorta giddy, like that one time that masked ninja carried him across the rooftops to the Hokage Tower. A hand suddenly came to rest on his right shoulder, and he heard the instructor speak, voice distant and echoing.

"Focus on that feeling, Naruto. Focus on it, and pull."

"Yes, sensei."

Naruto grit his teeth, imagining himself grasping the weightless feeling tightly in his hands. His body tensed, nose scrunching up in concentration, and he pulled.

He felt the light sensation spread throughout his entire body in a rush of a motion, heard it roar in his ears as it left his body. The instructor's hand left his shoulder, and a heavy crash managed to force its way past the noise in Naruto's ears. He opened his eyes, startled, and gasped.

The room had been wrecked. All of the papers that had been on the chunin's desk were now scattered about the room, some still drifting around lazily, and the contents of the boxes in the corner, several books and dulled kunai, had likewise been dumped on the floor. And the instructor himself, to Naruto's horror, had been thrown backwards into his desk, which now sported a long vertical crack splitting it down the middle.

Rushing over to the dazed man's side, Naruto hesitantly shook his shoulder. "Sensei? Sensei, are you alright?" He stammered. The instructor nodded shortly, gently shaking off Naruto's hand and pushing himself to his feet, surveying the damage the room had sustained. Then he looked down at Naruto, an unreadable expression on his face.

"Would you mind having a seat in the room across the hall until I'm done with the other children, Naruto?" He asked politely.

"Yeah, sure," Naruto replied nervously. Turning around, he bounded up the steps and out the door, past the curious gaze of a girl with hair and eyes a shade lighter than his own, dressed in purple and white. Slipping into the empty room set up with a big round table surrounded by a bunch of comfortable looking chairs and a large refrigerator, Naruto flopped down into the nearest seat for all of five seconds before he was up and pacing.

The clock on the wall said it had only been twenty minutes, but to Naruto it felt like it had been hours by the time the door finally opened. The chunin instructor motioned for Naruto to follow him, and he hurriedly complied.

"We're going to take a trip to the Hokage Tower," The instructor explained while the two of them walked down the hall towards the exit. "Hokage-sama would like to see your chakra himself."

"Did I do something wrong?" Naruto asked quietly. The instructor snorted, reaching down and ruffling his spiky blond hair.

"Of course not. You did something different," he said. Naruto stewed on that until they'd made it out of the Academy and the instructor crouched down, offering him his back. Naruto clambered on, and the instructor reached around with one arm to secure him to his back, and with the other formed a hand seal.

"Shunshin no jutsu."

Naruto cried out in surprise as the man suddenly shot forward, so fast that Naruto couldn't make out anything but blurred colors. The ride ended as soon as it had begun, and the instructor lowered Naruto carefully to the ground, keeping a firm hand on his shoulder so he didn't fall, and directed him into the towering red tower that the Hokage and his most trusted operated in. Quickly finding his senses, Naruto turned awed eyes up at the man.

"What was that, sensei?" He asked. The instructor chuckled, letting go of him and heading for the stairs.

"That was the Body Flicker. It's one of many D-rank jutsu you'll be learning if you graduate and become a genin."

"If, he says," Naruto muttered, hurrying to keep up with the man's long stride. They traveled the rest of the way up the tower in silence, and anxiety began bubbling anew in the pit of Naruto's stomach. The man had said he hadn't done anything wrong, just different, but that wasn't necessarily a good thing...

They finally reached the top floor of the tower and made their way past the waiting room and the Hokage's secretary, who merely nodded them through. The instructor knocked sharply thrice on the door, and the Hokage's familiar voice drifted through the sturdy wood, calling them in.

The Hokage's office was just as Naruto remembered it. Adorned with several shelves filled to the brim with scrolls, three straight backed chairs in front of the Hokage's desk, and the Hokage's desk itself, an ornate oak piece that stretched nearly wall to wall covered in scrolls and stack of paperwork. The old man himself sat back in his seat, staring contemplatively at Naruto, Hokage hat and robes securely on his person.

The two masked shinobi standing on either side of his desk were new. Naruto peered curiously at their unusual uniforms. Instead of the pure black clothing he was used to seeing, theirs had patches of muted green mixed in. And their masks were different too. 

They were even stranger than the usual fare- One was decorated sorta like a cat, with big pointy ears and strange markings around its eyes and mouth. The other was completely blank, a plain white oval that somehow managed to creep Naruto out even more than the freaky cat.

"Ah, Naruto, it's good to see you again" The old man greeted warmly. Naruto quickly turned away from the two strange looking shinobi and offered him a grin.

"Hey old man!"

"By your leave, sir," The instructor spoke up behind him. The Sandaime nodded genialy.

"Of course, Izumo. Thank you for escorting Naruto here safely." The chunin bowed, turning to leave. Naruto's eyes widened and he quickly lunged to catch the man's sleeve.

"Ah, I just wanted to say sorry again," he mumbled in answer to the man's curious look. "I didn't mean to, uh, throw you into your desk and stuff..." He trailed off lamely, looking down at his sandals. A moment later a hand was ruffling his hair, and he looked up to see Izumo smirking at him.

"No problem kiddo," he said. Then he turned and walk out the door, closing it softly behind him.

"So Naruto," The old man said. "Izumo told me your attempt at channeling chakra yielded some unusual results. Could you try channeling some more for us?"

"Are you sure?" Naruto asked doubtfully. Wrecking the Academy classroom had been bad enough, but what would happen to him if he ruined the Hokage's office?

The Sandaime just nodded, smilingly reassuringly, and Naruto found himself forming the Ram seal once again and focusing on the feeling of giddy weightlessness in his gut. This time he knew what he was looking for, and he also knew how to coax it out, so when the feeling sped out of his body this time the roar in his ears was replaced with the sound of ruffled clothing and scrolls. He cracked one eye open and found the room no worse for wear, to his relief.

The Sandaime hummed thoughtfully. "Mujina, Bakeneko, if you'd please." He said, and the two masked shinobi strode over to Naruto, crouching down and prodding him with glowing green fingers. Naruto took a startled step backwards, but they simply moved forward with him, continuing to poke at different spots on his body.

"Don't worry," The old man called. "They're just checking your tenketsu." Well, Naruto didn't know what tenketsu were, but if the old man said they were alright he supposed he'd trust them. For now.

After a few uncomfortable minutes the shinobi both abruptly stood up and retreated back to the Hokage's desk. The old man snapped his fingers and suddenly another shinobi melted out of one corner of the room, reaching over Naruto and opening the door.

"Go," the man commanded, voice muffled by the mask on his face, and Naruto hurried out. The shinobi walk right by him, past the secretary into the waiting room, where he took up a stance by the doorway. Naruto followed carefully behind.

"So... which one are you?" Naruto blurted into the silence. The shinobi's mask turned to face Naruto directly, but he didn't otherwise answer. Naruto rolled his eyes and pointed at the mask. "You know, which animal?"

For a while it seemed like the shinobi wouldn't say anything, but finally, "Weasel." Naruto scrunched his nose up.

"That sucks," he said distastefully. "When I graduate I'm gonna be something really cool, like a lion, or a shark!" Weasel cocked his head further.

"Only Anbu are issued shinobi masks." Naruto stared at him in confusion.

"What's an Anbu?"

Weasel sighed.

...

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