Is it possible to be born evil?
That question had plagued Naruto Uzumaki's mind since the day he was born.
He had thought about it often. When his day's had taken a turn for the worst, and he had been forced to hide from his village, he wondered why he was being forced to suffer such torture alone. He'd admit he was no angel. He was not perfect, but he was a good boy. He'd mess up sometimes, but when it really did matter, he was a good boy. He tried to be nice to the kids at school. He tried to be polite to his superiors, and he respected all of his neighbors. He had been a good kid. He didn't understand.
Then again, he had been about three at the time, and hadn't ever spoken to one of his many attackers. He had been too scared.
When he turned five one of the shopkeepers had twisted his ankle. It came as a result of chasing little Naruto out of his clothing store. As he lay on the ground, seething yet unable to do any type of decent damage, Naruto had gotten the courage to ask why.
"Because you're evil." He said.
Naruto had not known what evil was. He knew what right and wrong were, and he knew the difference between good and bad, but the concept of evil was something very new to him. He had asked the ANBU watching him, and he had asked the Hokage who kept him safe, but no one ever gave him a definite answer. In the end he had been left to discover the meaning on his own.
At first, he thought the village was right. Maybe he was evil. Maybe he did deserve the hell they put him through.
He figured he must have been born that way. He could never recall doing anything so terrible that would cause him to be punished so severely. Being born evil was the only possible excuse people had for torturing him. And of course, they had to have a reason.
Right?
It wasn't until he turned 12, until he became a ninja, that he realized what true evil was.
Evil wasn't the kid who pulled pranks on a daily basis to get attention. Evil wasn't the child who pushed himself day in and day out just to try and prove that he could. Evil wasn't the desire to protect something that despised him for no reason. Evil was not the orphan longing for a family. Evil was not the boy who wished to become a Hokage, to be the best that nobody thought he could be.
Evil was the village who abandoned their hero. Evil was the village that turned away when a child was suffering. Evil was the village who tortured a child who had done nothing but live. Evil was persecuting a child for murders he had never even known about.
His village was evil, and all he wanted to do was protect it. He never understood why.
It wasn't until years later, when he finally became the Rokudaime that he finally managed to understand why he never took revenge against the people who had wronged him.
Shikamaru, of all people, had stopped by his office that day. The usually calm Jounin had seemed worried, and even concerned, for his Hokage.
"What's up Shikamaru?" Naruto had asked. "It's a great day for cloud watching, what the hell are you doing inside?" His tone was as cheerful as ever.
That just seemed to make his friend worry more. "Why?" He had not said another word.
But somehow Naruto had known what he had been saying. And he found himself answering before he even knew what the answer was. "Because I'm not evil."
Yeah, this is what I get for watching Most Evil with my best girl and guy friend. They both started up a discussion over whether or not someone could be born evil. She said no, he said yes, I wrote this.