The Sandaime Hokage looked at the thief with a weary eye. The boy before him just had his head down and stood quietly in the grip of a pair of ANBU. He could not believe it had come to this. Barely two days before, the boy in front of him had painted the stone faces on the mountain and now he was captured trying to steal the most valuable scroll in Konoha.
"What am I going to do with you, Naruto?" the aged leader slowly said. "Why would you betray me and all of Konoha like this?"
Uzumaki Naruto looked up at the disappointed face of the one man who was important to him in the entire village. "But Mizuki-sensei said it was a make-up test. He told me if I could bring him the scroll I would become a genin."
The Hokage narrowed his eyes at Naruto. "You mean your teacher told you to do this?"
Naruto nodded, "I couldn't make a bunshin so I failed. He told me to pass a make up test I would have to sneak in here and take the big scroll. If I could do that and learn one jutsu on the scroll and show him that I could do it and he would pass me. Did I do something wrong?" The boy looked up with tears in his eyes as he realized from the look in the Hokage's face that he had in fact done something wrong. He had betrayed the trust of his most important person.
Sarutobi looked at the blonde boy again and saw the boy was telling the truth. He could not simply destroy the legacy of the Fourth based solely on him following the commands of a superior. But he did need to know for certain that the real criminal was captured.
"Naruto, you will wait here with these ANBU. I will go check on something. Where exactly did Mizuki tell you to wait for him?"
Mizuki chuckled as he headed for the meeting point. There had been no alarm sounded so the means the demon had not gotten caught. There had been no sign of any traps being sprung so the demon had to have opened the scroll safely. All that remained now was to gather up the item and kill the demon. This would surely buy his way into Orochimaru's graces once more. He looked down from his perch to see the blonde demon sitting and reading the open scroll. He chuckled before leaping down near the blonde.
"Good job, Naruto. You got the scroll I see. Very good job indeed. Now, just roll it up and back away," Mizuki told the blonde.
"But Mizuki-sensei, I managed to learn a technique like you told me to. Does that mean I get to be a genin now?"
Mizuki laughed, "You actually believed me? Kami, you are a stupid demon."
"Demon? Why are you calling me a demon, Mizuki-sensei?"
"Haven't you ever wondered why people shun you, Naruto? It is because you are responsible for the slaughter of so many 13 years ago. You are the Nine Tailed Fox trapped in human form! I am going to take that scroll and kill you now. I will have revenge for my family!" Mizuki screamed out.
The blonde did not look afraid or upset at Mizuki's outburst. In fact, he stood up and looked very disappointed. "You should really know better than that, Mizuki. But I think we have heard enough, would you not agree, Hokage-sama?"
"Indeed we have, Iruka, Indeed we have." Sarutobi stepped out from behind the building along with a team of ANBU. The blonde 'Naruto' puffed with chakra smoke revealing Naruto's other teacher, Iruka. Sarutobi spoke again, "You are under arrest, Mizuki. If you resist, these ANBU will strike you down. Cooperate and you might actually be free to see your fiancée Tsubaki again one day."
Mizuki paused hearing his betrothed's name and surrendered quietly. Sarutobi sighed and stood next to Iruka as the ANBU led off Mizuki.
"Now comes the hard part, Iruka. I have to decide what to do with Naruto. I appreciate your help in this matter and trust to your silence. I know Naruto has become important to you."
"Yes, he is, Hokage-sama. I had been out looking for him since I could get away from work. I was going to treat him to ramen since he failed his genin test. He tried so had but he cannot seem to make a bunshin. I could even see the effort and I could have sworn I saw chakra around him right before he did a badly deformed clone," Iruka said.
"Wait, you said you SAW chakra around the boy during his test?" Iruka nodded affirmatively. "But for chakra to be visible like that would indicate …" Sarutobi trailed off his statement as he looked back toward his office. "Iruka, come with me. I want to have you there when I talk to Naruto again."
Iruka nodded and followed as Sarutobi leapt back toward the Hokage Tower.
The ANBU stood watch over Naruto as the boy sat in his misery. The woman in the Cat mask was familiar to Naruto as she had been one of his many silent watchers over the years. He had tried to speak to them on occasion but they always shook their heads at him and indicated they were not permitted to speak to him before falling back into the shadows.
She sighed softly behind her mask as this was not a duty she would have liked at any time. She could clearly see the boy had great potential but somewhere along the line, something had gone wrong. She could sense chakra from him at a level a chunin would envy. She had filed reports often enough about the pranks he had pulled and his skills in planning and evasion were easily chunin level. She assumed no one felt the boy was worth the effort. It really was a shame.