Naruto Uzumaki!! (chapter 1)

Years earlier, the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox laid waste to the hidden village of Konohagakure, halted only when the Fourth Hokage sacrificed himself to bind the beast inside a newborn. A dozen years on, that child, Naruto Uzumaki, has grown into a loud prankster who keeps the village in an uproar. The residents resent his antics, yet with no family and no companions, Naruto welcomes attention of any kind, even scorn.

After he defaces the Hokage Monument with paint, the sitting leader, the Third Hokage, comes to look, and Naruto's instructor Iruka Umino hauls him back to the Academy. Told to demonstrate the Transformation Technique ahead of the coming graduation exam, Naruto instead pulls out his own Sexy Technique. Iruka later makes him scrub away the graffiti, then softens and takes him out for ramen that evening, where Naruto declares his ambition to become Hokage despite failing at even the simplest jutsu.

At the graduation test, Naruto cannot produce a working Clone Technique, and Iruka has no choice but to fail him. A seemingly kinder teacher, Mizuki, then feeds Naruto a supposed secret. That night Naruto steals the Scroll of Seals, convinced that mastering one of its hidden arts will earn him a pass into the ninja ranks. He manages only a single technique before Iruka tracks him down, and Iruka soon grasps that the boy has been manipulated. When Mizuki attacks, revealing his own aim of claiming the scroll, Iruka shields Naruto from the strike.

Trying to turn Naruto against the village, Mizuki blurts out the forbidden truth: Naruto is the vessel of the Nine-Tails, a fact hidden by decree, and he insists Iruka must loathe him most of all, having lost his parents to the fox. Naruto flees into the forest, overwhelmed, and hides behind a tree as Iruka and Mizuki face off. Mizuki sneers that Naruto will surely misuse the scroll, but Iruka rejects the idea, refusing to blame the boy for the beast's rampage and calling him a friend.

Moved at finally being accepted, Naruto steps out and unleashes the Multiple Shadow Clone Technique he taught himself from the scroll, overwhelming Mizuki while the Third Hokage ends the manhunt. Impressed that Naruto grasped so advanced a jutsu, Iruka pronounces him a ninja in training and places his trust in the boy's Hokage dream.

A billboard glimpsed after the search order resembles Kiru from Karakuri, an earlier Kishimoto work. None of the future Konoha 11 appear as Naruto's classmates here, though Kakashi, Sasuke, and Sakura, who do not formally debut until chapter three, are shown on the cover. The chapter was first published in Weekly Shonen Jump issue 43 of 1999.