Hidden strength of Uzumaki

Note: Zarodius does not own Naruto or anything affiliated with it! Also, i want to make this very, VERY clear before i start this story...NO YOAI!

The small, blonde boy looked to be about the age of five as he turned the corner and ran full-out trying to get away from a group of drunken villagers. He kept running into trash cans and dumpsters though, his bright blue eyes now a glazed, dull blue. The boy was blind. A brick thrown by an angry villager last year hit him square in the back of the head and now he could no longer see.

And the year before that, he had been beaten so badly he couldn't move for a week. This always happened on October 10th, he didn't know why it simply did for as long as he could remember.

And it hurt more than the actual beatings he got. He had to deal with behavior like this on almost day to day basis, and the physical abuse didn't bother him as much as why it happened. He didn't have any friends, anytime he saw kids his own age the parents would pick them up or move them behind them before he could do anything. He didn't have any family, no one to look up to, no one to teach him, and no one to explain why he was treated like he was. He had never been cared for or respected, just abused and beaten.

Some of the villagers were nice, the man who owned the ramen stand in particular was nice and helped him when he could. He had even pulled the boy out of a beating once risking his own well being, and he made the best food ever! Naruto asked why he had helped him out of the beating and he said:

"it makes my blood boil when I see grown adults treating children like that! Why if I was younger I'd..." and he trailed off mutter things like :beating them with sticks" or "hitting them so hard they wouldn't move for a week." And naruto had found a new friend in this old man. And his daughter ayame was his only friend his age, and he didn't get to see her much because the villagers might start beating her just because they thought she was associated to him.

Another person who was nice to him was an old man called Sarutobi. The old man had bought him clothes and food before and told him that if he ever needed help to come get him, that he was almost always in the Hokage tower. Naruto had been taken back by this and asked why he was being so kind? When he answered he said: " All the people in the village have a certain will, a will of fire that makes us all family here, and anyone with that will is my family, and I don't just leave my family hanging in the wind." He had said with a smile. Naruto had decided then that he like that man.

A rock whizzing past his head jolted him back to reality as he kept running, trying to avoid the main street incase there were anymore villagers out for him today when his heart missed a beat, he had run straight into a wall. He had already been beaten three times today, but nothing serious, scrapes, bruises, and some blood. But this was a whole group, not just one or two people, he didn't want to be caught by them. He turned around to hear the villagers were now slowly walking towards him. The boy desperately felt along the wall, trying to find a way out or past the villagers, his fingers felt along the wood and then he found it, there was a small hole in the fence he thought he had remembered being there from awhile back...if this had even been the same fence.

He ran for it without thinking. The hole was small, and even with his mal-nourished body he was having a hard time getting through. He got halfway through when something caught around his ankle. Knowing it was a villager he started to kick and flail his legs as he pulled himself through with his arms.

The flailing caused him to graze his side on a sharp part of the fence and the wound slowly started to ooze blood. His eyes started to water when he thought he wasn't going to make it through when another kick rewarded him with a startled yelp and he was let go.

Having his legs free gave him enough time to push his way the rest of the way into the whole, ripping out a sharp piece of wood in his leg as he got through. The villagers being drunk, had had enough of chasing the boy an broke off pursuit.

Leaning back against the fence, the boy's anguish took over and he started to cry, wondering why he was hated and what he did to deserve such a miserable life?

Anko was enjoying some dango in her house when she heard a lot of noise coming from her backyard. She turned in her chair and looked around, but didn't see anything but a fence. She turned back to her dango when she turned back almost immediately when she heard loud cries of "DON'T LET HIM ESCAPE!" and "GRAB HIM".

The people sounded rather drunk. Then she saw what looked like a small, blonde colored porcupine squeezing it's way through a hole in her fence. Then it looked up and she realized it was the head of a small child. It took him a few seconds but he managed to wiggle through the fence and lean back against it as the villagers broke off pursuit

. He then just looked down at his hands and started crying. Anko dropped her dango and rushed out the door to the boy, wondering what was going on and almost gasped at his appearance.

His blonde hair was matted with dirt and blood among other indistinguishable bits of filth. His shirt was dark gray with many stains and holes in it. He had black shorts on that came up above his knees that he had obviously grown out of and no shoes. Upon looking at him closer she saw that his eyes were glazed over, he was blind. He was injured, a piece of the fence sticking out of his right calf and a graze on his side, along with several cuts and bruises.

She started to approach him when his head snapped in her direction, having heard the noise, startled out of his crying he tried to go back out the hole he'd come in through. He almost got out but the wood in his leg kept him from getting through and caused him to scream in pain when it smacked against the fence. Anko quickly grabbed his legs and pulled him back through before he could injure himself more.

Before he could do anything else the man/women on the other side of the fence grabbed his legs and pulled him back, setting him on the ground. All he could think to do was to cover his head with his arms and curl into a small ball and wait for the beating to come. But it didn't.

He slowly calmed down, finding that whoever it was gently rubbing his back, trying to calm him down. When he realized the person wasn't going to hit him, he sat up and sniffed, placing Anko's scent and the feel of her hands as a her. She moved a hand to his head and he flinched, she hesitated for a moment, then began to mess his hair up some. Looking at her she was smiling and asking his name.

"What's your name?"She asked.

"M-my name"? He asked, not believing she hadn't hit him yet.

"Well you do have a name don't you"? She asked smiling at him encouragingly.

"My name is...Uzumaki Naruto."

"Im Mitarashi Anko." The woman said.

"Why were those villagers chasing you?" Anko asked. Anko saw his eyes turn from confusion to pain as he looked at the ground again.

'He knew that if he told her the truth and she found out who he was, she wouldn't be nice to him anymore and would probably start to beat him. But he also realized that he had just clawed his way through her fence and into her yard, so she had a right to know why

. "The villagers were...trying to catch me so they could beat me up..." Naruto said in a whisper, waiting for the woman to react, to yell, scream, or start hitting him. He mentally braced himself but when he looked at her again all he could see was a look of shock on her face for a brief moment before anger flashed across her eyes

. "NANI!!?" Anko yelled, outraged.

'Here it comes.' Naruto thought before shielding himself with his arms again

. Anko looked down and realized she had scared him with her yelling and quickly put a hand on his shoulder and soothing him. "Im sorry, I didn't mean to scare you, the villagers just piss me off sometimes" Anko said with an apologetic tone in her voice.

Naruto looked up at her and then let his arms slowly drop to his side. A few moments passed between the two in silence. Naruto had never really talked to another person from the village before, with the exception of iruchika and his daughter, along with the hokage.

There was Nami, but she only appeared when he was in desperate need or despair So he wasn't sure what to make of Anko.

Anko wasn't sure how to treat Naruto because one: she never did much with little kids anyway. And Two: most people thought of her as crazy and stayed away from her anyway.

The small boy in front of her looked at her suspiciously and asked: "why aren't you hitting me or yelling at me?" Anko's blood started to boil that the first thing a five year old kid would relate meeting new people to beatings or yelling, but she calmed herself and said something that brought him out of his shock.

"Cause im not like those arrogant asshole in the village that have a stick so far up there ass they have to stand straight." Naruto stared at her for a second before amusement lit up his face and he started to howl in laughter.

Oh that smile on the child! It was worth anything to keep it there! She smiled at him as he took to her joke but then she looked at him concerned as he started coughing hard and breathing shallow breaths before he fell over and passed out.

Anko was shocked, looking at him to see what was wrong she had totally forgotten about the fencing in his leg and the other graze. Mentally kicking herself for forgetting, she pulled the wood out and picked him up carefully in her arms before making straight for the hospital.

Many of the villagers glared or spit at her for carrying the child, but she was running to fast to have the time to beat them senseless. She had to get the kid to the hospital and fast. She put on another burst of speed as she saw the hospital and practically broke down the doors when she reached them yelling:

HEY, WE GOT AN EMERGENCY HERE!

A few nurses came and gasped in horror at the boy before taking him and putting him on a bed then rolling him into an operating room, she followed them to the door where a nurse told her she would have to wait until they were done healing the boy and to sit on the bench in the meantime. Sighing, Anko took her seat on the bench by the window and waited

Naruto was in a cold, damp room. It was dark, with a bunch of leaky pipes and a massive wooden cage in front of him. Wait...he could see! Naruto leaped around enjoy until a piece of paper on the cage caught his eye. The paper said "Seal" on it. A low growl came from the cage and two giant, bright red eyes pierced the darkness in the cage.

"WELL IF IT ISN'T NARUTO UZUMAKI, WHAT A PLEASANT SURPRISE."

"Who are you?" Naruto asked, feeling an odd sense of... security?

"I HAVE MANY NAMES, THOUGH I AM MOST WIDELY KNOW AS THE KYUUBI. I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR YOU TO STUMBLE UPON MY PRISON, FOR I WISH TO TALK TO YOU."

"What are you wanting to talk to me about?" Naruto asked curiously.

"HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE ABLE TO SEE AGAIN? The kyuubi asked.

Naruto's face lit up at the offer, to be able to see again...would be wonderful. But, he knew there had to be a catch, no one ever wanted to give something away for free.

"What's in this deal for you? Why are you willing to give me such a gift?" Naruto asked.

"HAHAHA, VERY GOOD BOY, YOU KNOW WELL THE WAY OF HUMANS, WHO GIVE NOTHING AND TAKE EVERYTHING. NO THIS NARUTO, I WAS ONCE A GREAT DEMON WITH POWER BEYOND COMPREHENSION. THOUGH FEW KNEW OF ME UNTIL FIVE YEARS AGO. The kyuubi's voice rumbled.

"JUST KNOW THAT IF YOU DIE, I DIE, SO THINK OF THIS AS MY WAY OF KEEPING US ALIVE."

Red chakra then flooded from the cave, completely enveloping Naruto. The room started to blur, the cage faded from view, the leaky pipes disappeared, the breathing of the kyuubi became quiet, almost one with his own, and all he could do was close his eyes and Naruto fell into a deep sleep.