Before I start this short crappy chapter, I want to tell you a story.

You see the past few month my grandfather's health begun to decline horribly. I was left at the care of my grandparents at the age of 5 so really they were like my parents. So when I realize that my grandfather was possibly dying I become depressed. This is all true Elie-nee can vouch for me. I was so lost I didn't know what to do, I was losing my Jiji to an illness. Obaa-san and Elie-nee didn't help at all with their constant laughter and jovial state. I was angry at them, at how they can easily not worry about Jiji, at how carefree they were. So I distance myself from them.

This May 5 My grandfather died. Obaa-san cried, and I cried a lot, even now a few tears slips my eyes at the thought of my grandfather. But Elie-nee, I never saw her cried. She was silent and she hadn't spoken a word for that day. She would answer as with a hum, grunt or shrug but she haven't said a word on May 5. Maybe it was her way of grieving I don't know. But the next day Elie-nee was back to her old self. She was laughing and making casual joke, sometime she'd make a bad pun just to make someone else laugh.

I will confess at that point I hated her more than anything. I mean how can she just act like nothing happened. How can she just smile like that when we were suppose to be mourning. I thought that maybe she just didn't care at all about Jiji. I was wrong.

After locking myself at my room for days. Elie-nee talked to me.

This May 29, She brought me my dinner just as she always did this past month. But unlike before she stayed, she sat before my door. She asked me what I was doing in my room, and I was so mad at her and I ended up blaming and accusing her of everything. I was so sure she was going to scream back, but she didn't. She just spoke without raising her voice.

"So would things be better if I just cried? Everyone was already crying, what would my tears do? It's not like it has magical abilities that revives dead people. Even if I cried, it's not like Ji-chan would miraculously come back to life. No, crying would just keep me stuck in that moment like it did to you. I wouldn't be able to move forward. Maybe it was rude, maybe others consider it as insult, but I couldn't bear seeing everyone crying. I couldn't take seeing them sad so I made them laugh. Was it so bad to wish that even for a moment the pain would dull for a second? I made them laugh because it was a lot better than allowing myself to drown in some self-destructive thoughts Amber. We don't have much choice but to move forward Amber, because when we get stuck in a moment, when we got lost in our past... we will never be able to live our life."

It was okay to stop for a second, to cry for the night. But to stay stranded in that moment for so long...

The world doesn't revolve around one person. It keeps going round and round no matter who stop. If you stay stuck in a moment for so long you'd miss a lot of thing about life.

And I regretted that, in a spun of a month, I missed a lot of thing about Elie-nee, about Obaa-san, About Uncle and the others.

I wonder what more will I miss if I stay crying in that room.

A Different Fox

Chapter Three

Last time:

Like a magic words, Naruto immediately cheered up at the thought of his favorite food. A fact that Kurama snorted at, but she couldn't stop the small smile from appearing in her lips.

'When you graduate tomorrow, I'll give you a little gift.' She thought as she focused on the seal that was keeping her prisoned.

The whole graduation exam was a fiasco. With Mizuki's blatant attempt to sabotage Naruto's exam and Kurama's apparent silent treatment, saying Naruto was annoyed was like saying Tsunade Senju liked to drink... A huge misunderstatement.

Despite that Naruto liked challenges, so when Mizuki obviously tried to purposely fail Naruto, the blond kid smile like he just found a new toy. Playing along Mizuki's plan for a while he pretended to fail. Of course, the key word there was 'pretended'.

His written exams were laced with genjutsu, while he could easily detect and dismiss genjutsu, his huge chakra reserve made sure that he would be unable to cast one thus Kurama thought him a basic genjutsu seal.

Ahh seals... it was one of his most favorite thing. He fell in love with it ever since Kurama taught her some basic few month ago. While he had love all the thing Kurama had taught him, seals were the best as he took it like ducks to water. But his fascination on seals were kept secret like any other justu he had learned and mastered.

The taijutsu were easy to fake but then again most people tend too take him by face value. Never seeing passed the stupid facade.

During the ninjutsu portion, they were asked to make do a Bunshin, he failed it by flooding the his clones with chakra.

So all in all, Naruto had failed with flying colors.

Iruka was confused as hell.

His favorite student just failed the graduation test. A test that he was sure Naruto could pass with no trouble, the kid had enough skill to do so. But then Naruto just failed every part of the test, which was so ridiculous since the kid had been evading ANBUs when he was 7. That alone should have said something.

Then again the blond kid had the whole village under his performance. No body but him, the hokage, and the copy-nin knew that the blond teen was more than what he shows. And none of them was closer to finding out the young jinchuuriki's secret.

Still today, Naruto was acting weird. He saw the kid shooting amused look at Mizuki like his just found a new pranking target. Somehow he just got a feeling that Naruto was just about to get in big trouble.

A few hours later he was proven correct.

The alarms sound and all the shinobis above chuunin-rank were informed that Naruto had no doubt stolen the forbidden scroll from the hokage's tower undetected. Undetected. How they knew that the young blond had stolen the said scroll, well let's just say that there was a note left by blond devil stating that a certain white haired academy teacher was planning to betray the village by fooling a failed student into stealing the forbidden scroll then later taking the said scroll for himself and bringing it to some other village thus this certain blond devil will be borrowing the scroll for a few hours.

Naruto sat in a middle of clearing in a secluded part of the forest above the hokage mountain. He sat there humming to himself as he hear the alarm that sounded within the village despite that he continued happily copying some of the jutsu from the scroll he borrowed from the hokage tower. If his calculation is correct then Mizuki should be arriving in about fifteen minutes and an ANBU squad in twenty minutes, that is if they were competent enough to be able manage to follow the trail he left. Then again he wasn't pushing his hope seeing as he been evading them since before he got in the academy.

As soon as he finished copying the jutsu, he quickly sealed them in one of his storage seal in the his belt. And in fifteen minutes somebody came, problem was it wasn't just Mizuki. In his surprised his favorite teacher came, Iruka appeared in his sight, ready to scold him like there was no tomorrow but his attention was focus on the one above the trees preparing to throw what he guess to be a huge barrage of kunai.

Naruto acted quickly the moment the projectiles were thrown, he tackled Iruka to the side then stood glaring at the traitorous teacher.

"Naruto give me the scroll!" Mizuki commanded in a condescending tone. Naruto however stood still eyes defiantly staring at the white-hair traitor.

"Naruto, whatever happens don't give him the scroll." Iruka stated as he place himself between the young blond and the traitor.

"There's no point in you having that Naruto. Give it to me, I'll tell you the truth." Mizuki lured the stilled blond as Iruka realised what the traitor plan to spill.

"No! Don't!" Iruka protested, his mind was panicking as Naruto stood frozen, head lowered in a bow as his bangs curtained his blue eyes from the world.

"12 years ago..." Mizuki started wait for a reaction from the blond yet he was met with nothing. Mind running with annoyance, he continued with a condescending tone. "You know about the demon fox being sealed, right?" Iruka, however heard enough of what Mizuki wanted to say. He didn't want the blond to hurt more and this secret that was about to be revealed would hurt his young student more. He made a move to attack Mizuki, but the traitor was faster, throwinf a couple of kunai to pin Iruka to the ground. "Tsk, tsk, Iruka, Iruka you shouldn't prevent me from telling the truth. Naruto deserve at least that much." Iruka's protest fell on deaf ear as Mizuki continued on. "Since that day a special rule was created for this village. But that rule was never meant to be told to you." Mizuki paused, laughing maniacally at the thought of the blond's devastated look. "The rule is that no one is allowed to speak of the fact that you are the demon fox! You are the demon fox that killed Iruka's parent! The monster that destroyed the village! You were sealed up by the hokage you so much admired! And you were lied to your whole life! Ever find it odd how everyone hates you? Iruka is the same! He also hates you!" Mizuki declares as he readied a huge Shuriken. "NO ONE WILL EVER LOVE YOU!" He threw the shuriken, aiming for Naruto as Iruka struggled to free himself to protect Naruto.

"NARUTO!" Iruka yelled at the stilled blond as the shuriken came closer but before it could hit the target a massive Chakra blast prevented the shuriken from reaching it's target.

"Are you done running your mouth Mizuki." Naruto to stated in a cold tone, a tone that reminded Iruka of the anger of another distinguished blond. He was mad, how dare this traitor run their mouth without knowing anything about what had happened that night. Naruto then placed his fingers in a cross before him. "Tajuu kage bunshin no jutsu." The blond called out as numerous solid clone appear out of thin air, that man will pay. "You see Mizuki-teme, I've known about the kyuubi since I was young and you should be thankful, If it weren't for her I would have been the monster you so fear." For a split second Naruto was reminded of that moment in their mind. "Beat him up." Naruto ordered as he walked towards Iruka. He sat down beside Iruka, soundlessly pulling out a first aid kit from his storage seal. They sat silently as Naruto tended to Iruka's wound, in the background Naruto's clone tied up an unconscious-and-clearly-beaten-half-to-death Mizuki. He steeled his heart, holding back the emotions that were running amok in his eyes.

"I host the Kyuubi." Naruto stated, looking at his sensei for any sign of fear. He watched the academy teacher stilled as silence fermented in the air. "Are you afraid of me, Sensei?" His tone was monotonous as the teacher looked at him with wide eyes, but upon those eyes were not of fear instead surprise was evident.

"No." The academy teacher answered honestly, looking directly at the blond jinchuuriki. "You're Naruto. You may not be the hardest worker, and you may be clumsy, but you already know what it is to feel pain inside your heart. You're not a demon, you are a member of the hidden village of the leaf. You are my student. You're Uzumaki Naruto." Iruka added as his finger scratching one of his cheeks. Naruto just smiled, happiness radiating from him at the simple acknowledgement. Iruka answered him with a smile of his own as his right hand reached to ruffle the boy's blond spikes.

"Naruto. There's something I want to give you."

A number of ninja was panicking in front of the Hokage tower.

"Did anyone found him?!"

"No!"

"Damnit! This is bad!"

"He could be far away by now!"

The Sandaime Hokage sighed at the sight of his men being evaded by an academy student. Really it was a wonder how these people become Ninjas. Then again it was Naruto, the boy just seemingly disappear unless he announce his presence. He cleared his throat to gather the attention of his men.

"There is nothing to worry about." The Hokage begun. "He'll come back soon."

"Now, sensei?" Naruto asked.

"Yeah, you can open your eyes now" Naruto obey, slowly seeing Iruka's figure. Soon he found Iruka without his Hitai-ate, his sensei was holding his goggles in one hand smiling kindly at him.

"Congratulations on graduating Naruto!" Iruka exclaimed as Naruto bit his lower lip on happiness. "Let's ce-" Naruto interrupted Iruka by hugging him.

Anyways...

Roza20 - I'm glad you like it...And she is helping him...Though I think Kurama isn't the best role model out there she might have corrupted Naruto in a few occasions...

deathgeonous - Ahh... You're welcome... I did have fun writing this so... Don't mind it? see ya later

The Almighty Pyro - I know right!

Kurotiger - I make no promises

Guest - I enjoy it myself

Guest - Thank you for pointing that... Anyway my respond to that is yes, normally they would be harsh themselves. A child that grows up in a harsh world only become harsh themselves, however I like to believe that despite all that, it is a testament to their strength that they were able to show kindness. Sometimes despite all the bad things that happen to people all it take is one good memory to bring the good out of them... something that most of the people I know like to call the 'turning point'... so it's not really that impossible... it is just too rare of an occurrence. Beside Kurama's past is not completely revealed and do you think that if she was harsh herself, she would take in those orphans before being in naruto? There is a reason, an event that made Kurama have a change of heart before being in naruto. And she did have troubles in being motherly in the beginning... just not with Naruto, she had practice with those orphans.

Another thing you pointed out was the naruto-gets-starved-and-beaten-up-horribly theme, I will confess I had that idea from other fanfics and yes it is not canon... However I was in need of something drastic happening to Naruto and I feel sorry for having him go through all the abuse but... I needed things to happen. Also you must keep in mind that this is a fan-fiction, so does it really matter if its canon or not?

akayas . awazikat - I will try to update as soon as I can but I make no promises... I'm glad that you find this work interesting... until then.

Guest - I will try and thank you

Fishy-ninja - ahh... yes, the bridge battle I look forward to writing that part as well after all I got so many things planned for that.

TheNinjaFromYesterday - thank you.

Nameless Angel 00 - hehe

guest - thank you, I will try but I make no promises.

Cassandre Potter - Thanks.

TheSecretNames - I will try but I make no promises.

A curious girl - well the reason why Kurama is all calm and serene is because she wasn't the original Kurama. Yes she have the memories of Kurama's life but the emotion that came with it are second hand at most. So the millennia worth of hatred doesn't exactly belong to her which is why she can detach herself from it. However just because she detach herself doesn't mean she wont be affected by it. It's mostly like standing on the tip of a balance one wrong move and she'll be consumed by it.

Review people! I keep my muse alive!

Ja ne!~