Betrayal

Chapter I

It has been five years since the prologue of this story. In this chapter, Naruto was eight.

"Okay brat. You are getting enrolled into the Academy," Niko said. Naruto smiled from ear to ear and was about to dance around until Niko interrupted him. "I do not want you to do well in the Academy, do you understand?" She said with a stern and slightly hateful voice.

Naruto's smile faulted. "Now get ready, and don't tell anyone I told you this." She continued.

Naruto quickly nodded, not wanting to say anything in case he cried. I thought they loved me.. He walked down the stairs and looked down at his small feet. Once he got downstairs and got all of his things, he waited at the door for everyone else.

"Naruto, are you ready for your first day at the Academy?" The shorter brother asked Naruto.

"You know it, Itsuki!" Naruto feigned a bright smile, but if anyone saw his eyes, they would've known that the smile was one of false happiness.

Itsuki was, obviously, short. He had a soft, chubby face with tan skin. He had dark brown, spiky hair. Most of the time, he wore a neon green jacket with gray sweats.

Touma was slightly taller. He had a longer face than Itsuki, and it was more angular. His skin was tan as well, but not as tan as Itsuki's. He had dark-brown, shoulder-length hair. He usually wore a gray jacket with gray sweats, and always said that picking better clothes "didn't make much sense".

Touma looked at Naruto with a calculating gaze. Why does he always smile like that? His eyes.. Touma sometimes saw Niko talking to Naruto, but he never thought much of it. He always caused trouble anyways; he left cabinets open, forgot to turn off the faucet. Touma, while he was lost in his thoughts, was almost left behind at the house.

"Toumaa.. lets go." Itsuki complained. Itsuki was always so oblivious towards Naruto's behavior. He never even noticed Naruto when he got in trouble. He was compassionate. He never treated Naruto with the same coldness that Niko and Sora did, and didn't show compassion for the same reasons as Touma; Touma felt that it didn't make sense to be cold towards him.

Before they knew it, they were at the Academy. "Have a nice first day, you three!" Sora wished them goodbyes; she gave Itsuki and Touma a nice look, but she simply gave Naruto a look of indifference.

A chūnin greeted the new class of academy students and told them to follow him to the class. A man with a horizontal scar across his nose walked to the front of the classroom. He introduced himself and welcomed the new students to the Academy. The name of the man was Iruka Umino.

"Okay class, we will run some tests on you all so that we can get a proper understanding of where you guys currently stand. If you don't do so well, don't worry, you've just started the Academy; you will get better!" Iruka said to the class.

The class walked outside to a clearing with one large white circle. As the children crowded around the boundaries of it, Iruka went to the middle and explained the process of sparring; from the sign of confrontation to the sign of reconciliation.

Naruto simply zoned out until his name was called. "Naruto Uzumaki and Itsuki Ito." Iruka called the two sparring partners up.

The two gave a friendly smile to each other before doing the seal of confrontation. When Iruka gave them the signal to start, they both rushed towards each other.

Naruto punched Itsuki in the shoulder. "Oof!" He said as he fell on his bottom.

"Okay you two, do the seal of reconciliation." Iruka said. Naruto helped Itsuki up and said, "Sorry." while they did the seal of reconciliation. They walked back to the outside of the circle while the rest of the children sparred.

With Niko

"I still can't understand how you put up with that demon child!" Niko's friend said as she downed a saucer of sake. "He has to be a handful."

"Yeah, yeah, he can be," Niko started. "But do you know why I actually adopted him?" Niko asked her friend.

"Why?"

"Since I've adopted him, everyone thinks of me as some type of hero!" Niko said as she raised her saucer of sake.

"Oooh."

"Then I'll get money, and food, and-" Niko passed out on the floor. She was too careless to see that Touma, Itsuki, and Naruto were walking home due to her absence.

Shit! I hope they don't- Much to Niko's horror, Touma was looking through the window while Naruto and Itsuki kept walking away.

He gave her an unreadable look then walked away. Who is the demon child? He thought. She did say adopted.. is it Naruto? "Oi, Naruto, I need to talk to you about something."

"What?"

"Does mom ever treat you.. badly?"

"No! Mom always treats me fine, why?" Naruto gave another one of his fake smiles. Clearly, the grin never reached his eyes; never did.

"Please Naruto, tell me the truth."

"Are you sure you won't tell anyone?"

"I promise."

"...fine. When she's not in public or around you guys, she treats me like.. like.. like poop. Sure I do those bad things, but when you guys do 'em, she doesn't give you guys the same punishment. Sometimes I hear her talking to dad about her adopting me and doing her plan, but I don't know what it is."

Touma was furious. His mom adopted Naruto not out of love, but just for another purpose? That.. that.. Touma was snapped out of his impure thoughts as Naruto continued.

"Don't let 'em know I've told you this, okay? I want to confront her, but not now. I want to be able to fall back if she does something."

"Fine. If you say so."

"What were you two talkin' about?" Itsuki asked.

So damn oblivious. Touma thought. "Nothing.. just something about school." He said.

"Ooh, ooh! What school things were you guys talkin' about?"

"Nothing, you idiot." Itsuki could've sworn there was a vein bulging out of Touma's temple.

"Okay bro, jeez." Itsuki knew how scary Touma got when you pressured him too much, so he just stopped there.

Once they entered the house, they saw a drunken Niko being guided towards her room by her friend. "I'm tellin' ya, I'm fine!" Niko said as he made her best efforts to escape the grasp of her friend.

"No you're not, get some rest." Her friend said as she threw Niko onto the bed and shut the door. Once she saw the three children, she scratched the back of her head, smiled nervously, and said, "Hehehe.. she's ehh.."

"Drunk?" Touma finished her sentence.

"Y-yeah. Sorry about that."

"No worries!" Naruto smiled once again.

Little did they know, a chūnin was stalking the outside of their house. "I can get rid of that damn demon brat and get the scroll in one fell swoop." He said as he went towards the house, his fūma shuriken glimmered in the moonlight.