The Merciless Fox Child

Chapter 2: Graduation Day

Naruto woke up to the sound of howling. Blinking his eyes open, he turned his head slightly to see his froggie clock.

6:34 AM

He heard another howl. See, after a while of Naruto always waking up late and being tardy, Kyuubi had it would be a great idea for him to help out. And so started his tradition of howling every morning at a deafening volume until Naruto got his ass out of bed.

WAIT. Do foxes even howl? Maybe it's because he's a demon fox with nine tails...? Oh well. Not important.

Naruto was startled out of his thoughts by another howl.

"Alright, alright, I hear you!"

"Then get up."

"Do I have to?" Naruto whined, while attempting puppy eyes on the beast that leveled Konoha. As if that would actually do anything.

"Yes."

"Why? Can't I just skip one day?"

"No."

"Why the hell not?"

"Because, Kit, today is the day you take the graduation exam."

"Oh."

That's right, today was the day. After years of suffering through boring lectures, and only managing to survive by pulling pranks and training with Kyuubi in his mind, Naruto would finally be free. Of course he'd still have to go on those stupid D-rank missions, and maybe some C-rank ones, but at least he'd be doing SOMETHING.

"Kit, you're spacing out."

"Right, right. Thanks, Kyuu."

Naruto pulled (more like dragged, actually) himself out of bed and went into the bathroom to take get ready. He undressed, carefully avoiding jostling a particularly bad injury that still had yet to heal, and climbed into the shower to rinse off. At this point he didn't have time for a full shower, so he just rinsed off whilst brushing his teeth so as to save time. While he was drying off, he paused upon catching his reflection in the mirror. Sometimes it was so easy to forget how many scars covered his body when he covered them up all the time.

The most noticeable was easily his right arm, which had been partially blown off in the explosion that had nearly taken his life all those years ago. That had been when he had first met Kyuu—he'd had no idea that when Kyuu said he was healing him that included quite literally regrowing his right arm from the bicep down. While his arm was back and good as new, there was still visible scarring where it had been blown off, and if you were to compare the skin from one arm to the other, you'd notice a pretty obvious difference in tone.

"Kit... You're spacing out again."

"Heh, sorry about that. Just really distracted today..."

Leaving the bathroom he grabbed an orange jumpsuit and a mesh shirt from his closet and quickly dressed.

"You're still wearing that?"

"Hm? Ah, yeah. Just one more day, I'll stop wearing it once I'm a genin."

"Y'know, I still don't get the point. Why do you wear that piece of crap again?"

"Because I like the color orange. It reminds me of you."

Kyuu choked from where he lay on Naruto's couch. "Ch-che."

Naruto smiled. "Also...because it annoys the hell out of people."

"Hmpth, that makes more sense."