A black-haired boy stood on a mountaintop, his battle kimono flowing in the wind. He was quite short, ten years of age with bright violet-blue eyes and pale cheeks. He looked down upon the active city of Konohagakure.

"Ne Kurama," said the boy aloud, "We're back."

The boy heard a grunt for a reply. With that, he jumped down and landed gracefully on the dirt ground. Ahead of him was the big gates leading to his home village.

The boy approached it, conscious of the guards. One had spiky black hair with a bandage across his nose while the other had his hair parted. A cloth was wrapped around his head.

When the boy saw them, he smiled and ran up to them.

"Kotetsu! Izumo! Long time no see!" he shouted excitedly.

The duo, who had previously been sleeping while on their post, woke themselves up when they lifted their heads up at the same time and banged it against each other.

"W-what?" questioned the one switch the nose bandage.

"Who are you?" asked the other guard.

Naruto smirked at them, finding their reactions amusing.

"It's me! Uzumaki Naruto! Remember? You guys used to look out for me when I was younger. I loved ramen," said Naruto, trying to coax their memory.

Kotetsu, who was the one with the nose bandage, nearly choked while Izumo's eyes were literally popping out of his sockets as they were trying to digest the information. Finally, one of them had the nerve to speak:

"Naruto, what happened to your hair while you were gone?"

Naruto smiled nervously, rubbing the back of his nape.

"Long story short, it's my natural colour."

Kotetsu and Izumo looked at each other and shrugged. It didn't really come as a surprise to them: the 'blonde' boy was always hiding secrets.

After sharing some of his stories with them and giving them his identification papers, Naruto was set to go to inform the Hokage about his arrival.

While strolling through Konoha after six years, he was starting to get quite nostalgic. His favourite swing set was still intact as well as what he dubbed as the best ramen shop in the world, Ichiraku Ramen.

Before visiting the Hokage, Naruto decided to catch up with Teuchi and Ayame who were the owners of Ichiraku, Naruto's favourite restaurant.

Teuchi dropped his pans when he saw Naruto while Ayame gushed at how much he had grown; from a cute, adorable toddler to a healthy lithe boy. It felt nice to have someone miss him. Naruto did long for affection once in a while.

It was lucky that Teuchi and Ayame weren't as inquisitive as Kotetsu and Izumo otherwise he would be answering their questions all day, especially about the hair.

When he finished his meal of chicken ramen with extra fish cake, he set off for the Hokage tower.

For once in Naruto's life, he could walk through his home village without being abused.

Black hair changed his looks he thought, amused.

Soon he had arrived at the Hokage tower. There at the door stood two people. Naruto stared quizzically at them, finally realising that they were the ANBU that were guarding the Hokage's tower.

"Identification papers please," asked an ANBU with red hair and a tiger mask.

Naruto smiled innocently at them and showed the pass he got from Kotetsu and Izumo. Reluctantly, the tiger ANBU moved aside, letting Naruto go into the tower.

"Oji-saaan!" cried out Naruto, enjoying his hysteria.

He could hear the voice of an old man muttering something along the lines of having a problem with his ears and that there was no way that he could be back.

"Ya miss me Oji?" asked Naruto cheekily, flickering behind Hiruzen which was a bad idea because it caused him to scream out in shock.

"Arggghh! Naruto! Please address me in the sane and normal way next time!" said Hiruzen, gasping.

Naruto laughed, smiling. Soon, the two of them were talking closely, as if they were actually grandfather and grandson.

"What's with your hair and face?" asked Hiruzen curiously.

Naruto sighed. It was time for Hiruzen to know the truth.

"Dad was a Namikaze but it turned out they were descended from the Uchihas. He didn't let anyone know that he was the last actual pure-blood Uchiha otherwise he would be forced by the council to restore his clan so he dropped his actual name.

Uchihas were considered to be pure-blooded if they were descended directly from Madara, which I am.

After his defeat at the Valley of the End, Madara was nursed by a girl of the assassin clan, Namikaze. They produced a son and he was my great grandfather. I'm also related to Senju Hashirama.

You can thank my Mum for the Senju bit: she was Tsunade's niece, bore by an Uzumaki who was married to Tsunade's disowned brother. Their child was called an Uzumaki because Tsunade's brother didn't want to shame the clan by naming his disgraced daughter a Senju.

Of course only Mum knew about this and when I was born, they cast a genjutsu on me to hide my true face from the world, just like Dad did many years earlier. Only Dad's family and Mum have seen Dad without his genjutsu and it appears that he is apparently more handsome.

She wrote that in her journal which I found in the Uzukaze estate on the day I left. It seems that they really were great and compassionate people. I really wished that I could meet them."

Hiruzen sighed. He wanted to help Naruto but the harsh reality of this world was that if you lost someone, you lost them forever.

"Naruto," said Hiruzen suddenly, "What are you going to do here now that you have returned?"

Naruto shrugged, not really caring.

"Maybe I can go to the academy? Or maybe even be an ANBU? It doesn't really matter. I don't really care. I just want to sleep right now so later. Have a good evening Oji! I will be staying at the estate if you need me," said Naruto while yawning.

Then he left the room.

He smiled when he reached the Uzukaze estate. He was finally home.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Sun slid through the cracks of the curtain and shone onto Naruto's face. He groaned and turned around, irritated.

Kurama was wide awake already and it angered him that his jailer got to sleep more than him so he decided to wake Naruto up.

"NARUTO! NARUTO! WAKE UP NARUTO! NARUTO! WAKE UP!" screamed Kurama, enjoying the attempts of Naruto trying to block him out.

Naruto groaned then jumped out of bed. It was better than having a giant fox shrieking in his head.

After dressing in one of his battle kimonos, attaching the weapons necessary and eating a simple breakfast of onigiri, he went out, deciding to meet the Hokage to talk about his future.

The ANBU looked at him suspiciously but let him in. Naruto skipped through the corridors, whistling and smiling. He found the room and barged in, shouting an "I'm here Oji!" while at it.

Hiruzen's eyes shot up from his paperwork when he heard Naruto. He greeted him with a smile and asked him to sit down.

"Good morning Naruto. I hope you have had a nice sleep here. Today I will have you fight one of my shinobi so I can assess your ability and rank you so I can decide what task to assign to you. Do you have any complaints?" asked Hiruzen.

Naruto shook his head.

"Great!" exclaimed Hiruzen, turning his head around. "Kakashi! Come in!"

A tall man with broad shoulders came in. He wore the standard jonin uniform and a black mask. The most striking feature he had was his silvery-white hair which looked as if it defied gravity.

Naruto was shocked.

"This man Kakashi..." mused Naruto aloud. "Can he be an ANBU?"

Hiruzen looked at Naruto, puzzled. The boy continued on with his suspicions.

"I sense he has very similar chakra to the ANBU dog that always looked out for me when I was younger. Ne Oji, am I right?"

Kakashi was lost for words at Naruto's detection skills.

"Naruto, when did you have such amazing sensory skills?" asked Hiruzen. "Yes, Kakashi used to be the ANBU you were just talking about. How did you know?"

Naruto smirked.

"Let's just say underestimation is bad."

Hiruzen and Kakashi both chuckled.

"Anyways, moving on," said Hiruzen, "We are going to have you battle Kakashi so we can grade your abilities."

"Okay Oji! This is going to be fun, dattebayo! I haven't had a good battle in a while," said Naruto excitedly.

Hiruzen and Kakashi both smiled when they heard Naruto's verbal tic he had inherited from Kushina. With that, Hiruzen flickered them into an arena.

Hours passed and Hiruzen finally had Naruto's skills mapped out...and it was outrageous. Not only could Naruto beat Kakashi easily and do every single ninjutsu possible, but he also made some of them up himself. Naruto was an absolute child prodigy.

His medical ninjutsu was beyond Tsunade's, fuinjutsu much better than Minato or Kushina, genjutsu was brilliant and unheard of (even better than Kurenai's), ninjutsu superb and kenjutsu surpassing anyone in the world.

Surprisingly, Naruto as a shinobi didn't really like using ninjutsu. He only really depended on fuinjutsu and a medical ninjutsu style of taijutsu.

Naruto was unbelievable. Not only was he very skilful, but he was also attractive too. It would come in handy for seduction missions, not that he had been on one, yet.

As a reward, Kakashi took him out to meet the other ANBUs and jonins who helped him when he was younger. They were eating at Yakiniku Q.

"Yo, Asuma! Long time no see," greeted Kakashi with an eye smile.

Asuma, a tall man with dark olive skin and a cigarette in his mouth waved to them then resumed back to his conversation with a woman with red eyes.

"Ne Kakashi," said a woman with spiky purple hair in a trench coat, "Who's the brat? You're not being a pedophile and hitting on him right?"

Kakashi eye-rolled, retorting,

"Never knew you could tell I was a pedo, Anko. Unsurprisingly, I did follow after you."

This time Anko eye-rolled, venting out her friendly anger by chewing viciously on a piece of pork while the others caterwauled out, "Ohhhh, nice one Kakashi."

Kakashi gave an eye smile and sat down.

Naruto shifted awkwardly around. All these people were more than double his age and they felt that they had nothing to do with a miniature brat like him. Silence fell on them all.

Suddenly, a guy in green spandex decided to break the ice.

"Come on guys! It is not very youthful not talking to each other. The springtime of youth has come and Konoha has beautifully bloomed. Tell us, my youthful comrade Kakashi, who is this youthful lad? He emanates the freshness of the lotus, the epitome of eternal youthfulness! May I ask, what is your name?"

Kakashi sighed and eye-rolled once more while Anko facepalmed at the speech of the guy in the spandex.

"Hi everyone," said Kakashi in a fake happy tone. "I know you all miss me but I have a brat to introduce to you today. This is Uzumaki Naruto. Yes, it was the Uzumaki Naruto you guys so dearly looked after when he was in the village six years ago."

Anko stopped eating, Asuma choked on his cigarette, the green spandex guy also known as Gai stopped proclaiming his views on youth and the red-eyed girl called Kurenai looked confusingly at them.

Gai broke the silence once more.

"Naruto! It's you! How youthful to return to us! It was very unyouthful of you to leave but never fear, the spring has blessed Konoha!"

And not long after that, Naruto officially belonged not only in Konoha but also with Kakashi's friends: Asuma, Anko, Kurenai, Ibiki, Gai, Yamato, Yugao, Genma, Hayate and much more.

He spent the whole night with them, laughing at their jokes and talking about his journey away from home and also, of course, the most asked question, the hair.

Apart from not telling them about his true heritage, Naruto pretty much enjoyed being around Kakashi's friends. Even Kurenai who didn't know Naruto when he was younger as she was a chunin at the time took a liking to him.

And this was Naruto's second day here back in his home village. It almost made him wonder why he left it in the first place but that didn't matter anymore: for the first time he belonged.

Knowing this, Naruto smiled and fell soundly asleep.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Hey-reader-chans! Hoped you liked this chapter! CONSTRUCTIVE criticism, please. 

Is the relationship between Kakashi and Naruto too fast-paced or you like the brotherly love between them?

Thanks for taking the time to read the story and my really long (and probably annoying) author notes, hehe.

This is my first fanfic ever! Please support me! I will try my best :D Bye! :)