ANBU Child

Growing Up

AN: I forgot to mention that Naruto is actually two years younger than the rest of the people in his grade.
Naruto was a genius. He was now 9 years old and stronger than any ninja alive. He was faster than his father could ever hope to be. He was one of the best ANBU in the world and had completed over a million missions all across the Elemental Nations. When he was four, he had started wearing the Kitsune mask that his father had worn before him. He had a few hundred loving and overprotective parents in the ANBU and the rest of the Jonin forces as Aunts and Uncles. He was treated as the prince he was.
Unfortunately, he was forced to go to the Academy to interact with children his own age. He was saddened by this as it meant that he was technically on an infiltration mission and would have to live on his own without interacting with any of the people he felt safe around. Not a single shinobi was happy when the ANBU gossiped with those outside. It was an unspoken law and they had to adhere to it. He had to stick to the mission details and since it was a direct order from the Hokage, the ANBU could do nothing to jeopardize his safety. That didn't mean that they wouldn't find loopholes such as the Military Police doing a weekly welfare check on the child. When it had first happened, there was almost a riot but Naruto managed to convince them that he was okay.
Sure, his apartment was old with no heat or electricity and there was no hot water and the water was undrinkable but he didn't tell anyone that. He never told them that the landlord had figured out who he was and demanded enough rent that Naruto only had money for ramen. When he was signed up for the academy officially, the landlord told some shop owners that Naruto was a demon and to not trust him. The shop owners followed the landlord's example and treated him like trash as they blamed him for things he didn't do. Now whenever he would go to restock on instant ramen, he could only buy at most 12 individual cups of it. He wouldn't even be able to forage in the woods as the Elders of the Village were watching his every move, having figured out that he was the host to the fox. The first time he was beaten by the landlord, he didn't fight back because he was a registered ninja and was not allowed to hurt a civilian. It was hell.
When he was in the classroom, he felt the glare filled with hate that the strange teacher that smelled of snakes sent him. This was one of the reasons he was in the Academy. He had noticed that they had messed up his records. His full name was not included and his lineage wasn't stated. They thought he was just another child with the name of the Fourth Hokage's son and didn't take him seriously. After all, the Honorable Son was off training and wouldn't be back for a few more years. He knew that he had to pretend to be dumb, like stupidly dumb. The Elders had informed him that the Hokage had allowed all of this to occur and that if anyone actually cared, they would be punished, unaware that the child was their hero ANBU Kit/Kitsune. Naruto had felt his heart shatter. He was still a child, after all, and didn't realize that the Elders were manipulating him. They then forced the persona of an idiot on him and made him dress in kill-me-orange.
He found out that he was free enough to do things that grabbed the ANBU's attention. He used it as training but was careful to hide his emotional pain until this mission was completed. Iruka and Kakashi were some of the ones to chase him or on nights when they felt his chakra howling, they and a large squad would sit and send comforting chakra to the child. They would manage to leave some money for him along with food because they were worried. Dragon was pissed and would ask Obito to appear after Naruto was asleep to figure out why there were so many monitoring seals around the apartment. Obito did so and would cuddle with Naruto when the boy would have a nightmare or after he had cried himself to sleep.
His hundreds of parents including Clan Heads were helpless as their child suffered. The clan heirs were taught from the beginning about Naruto and that he would be their Hokage and younger sibling. They had a desire to train to be able to catch up and protect the child and Ino's friend, Sakura started to train with them. Neji was one of the ones that trained hardest. He helped the group to build up endurance and they talked Kakashi and a few other "ex" ANBU to train them. The Will of Fire was an inferno in this generation.