Disclaimer:
This is a story on a fanfiction site. For those of you who do not know what fanfiction is and are too lazy to use a dictionary or google, google says: "fiction written by a fan of, and featuring characters from, a particular TV series, movie, etc." For those dunces too moronic to extrapolate what that means: I do not own any rights to Naruto. Thank you.
The fact that disclaimers seems to be needed on a site dedicated to fanfiction for a story that is labeled as fanfiction is sad a statement on the collective intelligence of humanity.
It was a sunny, peaceful day in Konoha. The prosperous ninja village was such a tranquil sight that a visitor would never guess it had nearly been destroyed a little under six and a half years ago. All physical signs of the attack had long since been removed or repaired, leaving only the wounds in the hearts and minds of the villagers to tell of its passing. Well, that and the loud, blond-haired, blue-eyed nuisance currently trying to sneak into a supermarket.
The hungry six-year-old cautiously crept into the store. If he was lucky and fast, he would be able to grab some ramen, set some money on the counter, and leave before the man manning the register looked up from his book. Ramen was his favorite. It was cheap, could be prepared with nothing more than hot water and a bit of patience, and was available anywhere. He nervously slid through isles, searching for his prize. He saw bread, raw meat, milk, canned stuff that he couldn't eat because his can opener was broken again, and no ramen. Holy Ramen! The store owner must have moved it.
Quietly, keeping his steps light, Naruto snuck around the last line of shelves, his back to the register. There it is! With a suppressed gasp of delight, the young boy darted forward, his hand reaching upwards for the precious noodles almost out of his reach on the third shelf. Just as he was about to touch his prize, a rough hand grabbed his arm and yanked him around. Naruto found himself facing a furious owner.
"What do you think you're doing in my store, Nine-tailed brat? We don't serve demons here!" Roughly, the red-faced man dragged the boy to the door and flung him out of the shop. As the blond boy stumbled and fell onto the street, the man spat, "Don't ever come back here, demon brat, or I'll be reporting you for theft!"
"That's not fair! I always pay! And I'm not a demon, you idiot! I'm going to be hokage! Believe it!" Naruto yelled back, hiding his pain behind bravado. He forced himself not to react to the bruised arm or bloody knees from the fall. He was tough. This stupid store owner would learn his place when he was hokage. Then he wouldn't dare hurt him or throw him out for stupid reasons!
"Hokage? Don't make me laugh! Scat! Begone!" The man moved towards Naruto, looking ready to do some damage. Naruto's stomach growled, and he decided that he had had enough. He really didn't need more pain. The hokage or one of his ANBU would drop by his apartment tonight with food. He would just have to wait another four hours. He could also try another shop. As the six-year-old walked away, he found himself remembering a store he had seen a week ago when he had walked through a ninja district with the hokage. Maybe the owner will be nice. With new hope, Naruto changed direction, heading towards the part of town holding the Aburame and Hyuuga compounds.
As Naruto approached the store, he heard voices.
"You'll never believe what that Mikoto's brats did the other day! Itachi decided to teach his little brother how to make fireballs. Of course, any sensible person would know not to teach a six-year-old to spit fire, but Itachi's still a kid, in the end. Chunnin or no."
"Did he set Fugaku on fire? Please say he did."
"Hahahaha… Nothing that good, unfortunately. But he did manage to set three of the houses in their district on fire. Itachi ended up using a water dragon jutsu to put it out, and now half the district is flooded! Did you see all the mud on the military patrol's boots?"
"Is that why Katsu looked so damp this morning? I thought he had fallen in the river."
"Yeah. Almost as good as some of the stuff Iruka used to pull. Anything new on your end?"
Naruto peeked around the corner at the two ninja chatting on the steps of the shop. He was too cautious and shy to enter with them standing there. Plus, he was a little scared of what they could do to him. Many civilians grumbled about him being around, and a handful had beaten him in the past, especially during his birthday. Who knew how an unknown ninja would react?
The ninja wearing covering clothes and sunglasses replied, "I heard that Hyuuga brat, the one whose father got offed by Kumo for stopping a kidnapping, got in a fight with another one of the Hyuuga brats yesterday in the middle of the main street. Something about how much he hates the main house."
"Poor bastard. Being tortured by your own family on a whim can't be fun. Why they haven't found a more humane version of their precious seal by now is beyond me. Sooner or later one of the branch members is going to kill all of them in their sleep."
The other snorted. "Way to turn the conversation morbid, man. Anyway, I'd better get this stuff to the house before it goes bad. See you around!" The ninja vanished in a flurry of leaves.
"Aburame brat. Showing off flashy techniques. Who does he think he is, Shisui?" The other ninja strode off.
With a sigh of relief, Naruto took a step towards the store, then froze. He replayed what he remembered of that conversation in his brain. Brat mean child, right? Itachi was is classmate, Sauske's, older brother. And his mother's name was Mikoto. Sauske set his house on fire?! And people call me destructive. Naruto couldn't help but grin. He bet Sauske got in so much trouble for that.
Naruto couldn't help but feel jealous of the popular boy. His classmates flocked to him. Adults liked him for his name. Ninja laughed when he set his house - and two others!- on fire. If Naruto did the same thing - he shuddered at the thought. Though a part of him wondered if he would at least get some recognition if he set a teacher's house on fire. Or the store he had just been thrown out of.
Naruto came out of his shock quickly, and was heading towards the store again when another thought struck. "Hyuuga brat. Uchiha brat. Mikoto's brat. Aburame brat." These iterations of a common appellation of his - brat - struck a chord of memory deep inside him. He paused, feeling that he was on the verge of solving out a very important puzzle. Then it struck him. Every use of the word brat meant child, but it also had another meaning. Mikoto's brat mean that Mikoto was Sauske's mother. Hyuuga brat mean that the child they had mentioned, whoever he was, was a child of the Hyuuga clan. In other words, his parents were Hyuugas. So when a person called someone a so-and-so brat, they meant he was a member of that can, or that so-and-so was his parent. It wasn't always an insult!
Quickly, Naruto tried to remember every time he had heard the word used that way. It made sense. But that meant - no, that couldn't be right, could it? Nine-tailed brat. Demon brat. Naruto sat down, legs feeling weak. The Hokage told him that he wasn't a demon, so he had long since decided that most of Konoha's population was deluded. However, the Hokage never told him about his parents. He claimed not to know, but everyone knew politicians and ninja both lied for a living, and the Hokage, for all that he loved and supported Naruto, was both. He might not have wanted to tell Naruto the truth. After all, being told your parent was a demon would be scary. The Hokage had explained white lies to Naruto a few years ago. Wouldn't this have been one?
Shaking, Naruto crawled his way back into the alley he had been hiding in. He hugged his knees, crying. The Nine-tailed fox was my parent. It was even worse than believing he had been abandoned, or that his parents were dead. He had at least been able to imagine that they were good ninja.
After sobbing for what must have been half an hour, a tired Naruto suddenly had an incongruous thought. Was the fox a male or a female? Naruto may not know how children were made, but he knew that all children had two parents of opposite genders. He had never wondered whether the Nine-tailed fox of legend was a boy or a girl. It seemed strange to think of the fox like that. He giggled a little, insane-sounding giggle as he suddenly had a picture of himself calling a fox the size of the Hokage tower "mommy."
That was another issue. How could his mom or dad be a fox? All of his classmates had two human parents, though he had heard a few bullies speculate that Shino's dad was more bug than human.
After giving that dilemma due consideration, the six-year-old decided that it probably didn't matter. The fox was really, really powerful. Normal ninja could henge into other people and even weapons. In fact, he was working on a prank henge to catch perverts. Who knew what a demon powerful enough to level a ninja village do? Maybe it could turn into a human instead of just using a henge. Or maybe it used weird demon powers to make a baby. After all, who said you needed two humans? The Hokage only told him you needed a boy and a girl who loved each other very, very much. Feeling a bit crushed, Naruto broke down again.
A few hours later, a calmer boy with a tear-streaked face made it into the store. Either not recognizing him or feeling pity for the obviously upset boy with bloody knees, the owner sold him ramen for half price, which cheered Naruto up considerably. He thanked the owner gratuitously, though he wasn't sure he could bring himself to go back to the place where he had learned such horrible truths any time soon.
He staggered back to his house, spaced out and nearly oblivious to his surroundings despite the glorious Ramen he carried. He met a very alarmed Hokage at the door to his apartment, and was quickly bundled inside and comforted.
Hiruzen finally asked Naruto, "What's wrong, Naruto? What upset you so much? Did someone hurt you?"
Naruto sniffed. He wasn't sure that he should tell the Hokage that he knew the secret of his parentage, but tried to anyway. After all, he loved the old man. "I- I ran out of food this morning." Naruto stammered, rambling a bit. "I went to the store and the mean man threw me out again. He called me Nine-tailed brat. Everyone calls me the Ni-Nine tailed brat. When they say a kid is someone's b-brat *sob*, they mean that that person is the k-kids…" Naruto trailed off, not sure he could finish. He sniffled a bit. Finally, he blurted out his most pressing question so quickly that the words nearly blurred together. Looking at the old man's robes, he said, "Was the Nine-tailed fox my mommy or my daddy?"