Kakanaru: The pain behind Naruto's mask

2

I woke up to the sound of purring. Kurama was on my chest with his tail up over his head. His ears were laid back against the side of his head and his nose was twitching. Today was graduation and tomorrow we would be rid of that horrid orange jumpsuit. Chuckling, I thought I might just burn it. With a stretch, I reached over and poked Gamakichi. "What did ya do that for, huh?" Gamakichi complained. "Don't you have something for me?" I grinned. "Ah right, almost forgot about that." Gamakichi pulled a scroll off his back. "Laters." He said, just before disappearing. I got out of bed, dislodging a very grumpy fox, and opened the scroll. It was from my godfather, Jeraiya, whom I met after telling Jiji that I knew about Kurama and my parents when I was eight. I waited to tell him because I wanted to learn about the history of Konaha, and more specifically about the Uzumaki and Namikaze families, before I said anything. The letter said good luck, and that he hoped, as one of the few people who knew the real me, that I would be able to replace my fake smile with a real one soon. After sealing my godfathers letter inside a storage seal tattooed on my wrist with the others, and I put on the horrid jumpsuit and fake smile for the last time. I went into the bathroom to brush my teeth, because my mouth tasted like ramen. There wasn't really anything wrong with it, but I haven't gone out of the village in a couple of weeks for food, so I've been eating that the last 3 days. Ramen is the only food I can eat here without having to worry about it being poisoned. I ran to the academy and sat down next to the kid with duckbutt hair, Sasuke. After a few moments I heard a stampede and looked over at the door, where a pinkie and a blonde were struggling to get through, calling each other Ino-pig and billboard brow. I glanced back over at Sasuke, sweating a little. I thought,'Crap, I forgot about his fangirls.' As if they couldn't see that I was sitting here they came over. Sakura opened her big mouth and said,"Move." I smiled, thinking, 'Why did I pretend to have a crush on her again? The only good thing about her is that she unknowingly helps me hide the fact that I'm gay. Tommorow that won't matter, but for now I should keep faking.' I said,"Aw, C'mon Sakura, can't I just stay here, there's plenty of other open seats." Before she could answer, Iruka sensei came in and told the class to sit down. All through the written exam I could feel her eyes on the back of my head. The exam scores would be posted at the end of the day, in the lobby of the Hokage building. I went through four of the five exams and went over what we'd done so far. First was the written exam on the history of Konaha, then we moved on to taijutsu, after that we broke for lunch (ramen), then we did a basic genjutsu test, which I could have done advanced but whatever, after that we threw kunai, and now we're waiting for the ninjutsu test. We take all of the tests individually so no one knows how I did except our instructors. Iruka sensei is one of my precious people so he knows my mask won't be in place much longer. "Naruto Uzumaki?" Hearing my name, I leave for the next test. "Stand over there," smirked a white hair ninja called Mizuki. "Naruto, I want you to make 5 clones." Iruka knows that five is the minimum I can do of any type of clone. Just as I'm gathering chakra, I notice a disruption in my chakra network. I glare at Mizuki and rid myself of the disruption by forcing more chakra throughout my body. Mizuki is gaping at me like a fish out of water. I made 5 water clones." You pass." Iruka smiled at me on the way out. I gave Iruka a nod. I wouldn't show any of my phony smiles to him anymore. I was finally free of that. I went home and practiced with my seals for an hour before going to check the exam results. I stood on top of a nearby roof and read the top three students for each test.

Written Exam
1. Naruto Uzumaki
2. Shikimaru Nara
3. Sasuke Uchiha

Taijutsu
1. Naruto Uzumaki
2. Sasuke Uchiha
3. Kiba Inizuka

Genjutsu
1. Naruto Uzumaki
2. Sasuke Uchiha
3. Hinata Hyuuga

Ninja Arts
1. Naruto Uzumaki
2. Sasuke Uchiha
3.Kiba Inizuka

Ninjutsu
1. Naruto Uzumaki
2. Sasuke Uchiha
3. Shino Aburame