A/N: Hey guys! I know that I haven't exactly been a good author the past couple months I kind of threw this on the back burner for a while, and well now I'm back on. I have edited and rewritten the story from the beginning. Thank you for anyone actually following this story. It brings me so much joy! Just a side note, your reads and reviews have a direct correlation to how much and when I write. Just a side note.
It was a bright, autumn day in the confines of Konohagakure no Sato. People were bustling about, buying food and decorations in preparation for the festival that night. For, this day was special to this particular village, it was the anniversary of the day the Kyuubi no Kitsune had attacked, the day they lost over half of their shinobi forces, and the day they lost their most beloved Yondaime Hokage - Minato Namikaze - more commonly known as the Yellow Flash. This particular time of year people mourned the loss of loved ones and family friends, celebrated the defeat of the Nine-Tails, and took all of there anger and loathing of the great demon out on a poor undeserving boy. Naruto.
Said boy was huddled up inside of a trash can that had made home of an alley between a ramen stand and a decrepit building that was long ago abandoned. The four year old boy was doing his best to go unnoticed on this unfaithful day, adorning his usual - his only - dirtied white shirt and black shorts. Both covered in holes varying from small to to big, both a size bigger then he. If you were to listen hard enough you could hear small, sad words being sung by the lonesome child.
"Happy Birthday to me,
Happy birthday to me,
Happy birthday dear Naruto,
Happy birthday to me,
A little song I want to hear,
Sung to me by someone else,
Happy birthday dear Naruto,
Happy birthday to me."
Naruto could hear a shuffling noise that signified a person walking towards his dumpster and he began to shake and quiver. The boy curled in on himself and quieted his breathing in hopes of them not noticing him. There was a bright light as the lid was pried away and an old man with dark hair filled poor Naruto's entire line of sight.
The old man frowned at the spectacle and spoke in a very clear, kind voice, "What are you doing in here boy? Get on out and I'll fix you some ramen, free of charge."
Naruto had never heard words with so little malice in his life. It shocked the quivering boy to a moment of stillness. He had not a clue of what to do in this situation, so he did as told and struggled out of the dumpster. Making his way to one of the stools as quietly as possible, he contemplated what it meant to be called by ,"Boy." He knew Demon, Monster, Murderer, and even Despicable Brat, but he had never been called boy.
His confusion must have made itself known, cause the next thing he knew, the nice man working over a pot asked what was on his mind.
"I'm just wondering what you meant by boy. My name's Naruto, not boy," muttered the innocent, undeserving child.
"Well my name's Teuchi Ichiraku, Naruto. I didn't know your name so I just called you what you are. A boy. Ain't no need to try and find some deep psychological meaning to it. You got a last name, kid?" Replied the elderly man as he placed a steaming hot bowl of pork ramen in front of the starved child, "Eat up."
Five Years Old~
Naruto roamed the alleyways of Konoha, trying to memorize them, a thought he had neglected since he was locked out of the orphanage. The headmasters of the orphanage didn't seem to like him all that much. They had burned his toy fox and made him sleep in the small closet hidden away in the basement. If you walked by the run-down building you could still see the small space collecting more and more dust as the days passed, the ashes of the old plush fox scattered. All through the sliver of a window that couldn't open.
The blonde genius encountered a small hole in the wall behind a dingy, smelly old bar, something had gleamed he swore it. He bent over and peered into the mysterious hole to find a small bag with the top slightly folded down. He had snatched the bag and ran out of the alleyway, hoping no one saw him and his rare find.
By the time he had gotten home his patience had worn thin and the boy emptied the contents of the bag onto the rickety floor of his old apartment (he had moved into the abandoned building across the walkway from Teuchi-san's stand after the 40-or-so-year-old-man had helped that faithful day over a year ago.) and his eyes widened. "Why would anyone just shove these in a crappy old bar?" Naruto had asked himself.
The untidy pile was made up of three pronged knives, some needle-thingys, a heavy arm band with the name 'Minato Namikaze' carved into the underpart of the band, and three books. The books said things like, "Fuuinjutsu and it's secrets", "History of the Uzumaki Clan" and a journal of sorts. As any five-year-old should be, he was curious. So he opened the journal. And started reading (Ayame-nii-chan had been teaching him everything she learned at the academy for civilians). The first page had read, "Hey-o Journal-sama, Minato here! So I'm not good at this but Kushina-chan says I have too much bottled up inside and blah, blah, blah...but then I realized what if I went crazy and forgot everything, so I have decided I am going to try and do this daily, so I can't ever forget anything! Pretty good, right?" and more, but the blonde had begun to flick through the pages. He had seen little chibi yelling at other chibi, intricate little swirly, things with pro-pron-prongs! coming out of the sides, pictures of toads, and two photographs.
The first was one of a man maybe in his thirties or forties with white spiky hair that reached his lower back and a boy with bright blonde hair and light, shining blue eyes, "He looks kind of familiar..." mumbled Naruto. Both were holding blue popsicles. The man with the long hair had a creepy smile on his face, and was staring longingly at what looked like an onsen while the blonde was smiling towards the camera and holding his left hand in the air and showing just why he was smiling, there was a violent blue orb surrounding his fist and somehow conveying just how deadly it was through one photograph. And the second one being of an adult woman with long flowing red hair. Her arms were wrapped securely around her swollen stomach, as if the simple act could protect the little being growing in her and her grey blue eye were crinkled at the edges. She wore a long dark green dress and was staring at something just behind the camera.
Naruto smiled at the pure joy in the second one, somehow feeling connected to the woman in the photograph.
Six Years Old~
YES!
That was the seventh time in a row, and he had hit the bulls eye. Every. Single. Time. That means the seal worked!
He had created a seal to put on his weaponry so that when throwing the weapon, the chandra you put into the throw to make it go further than it would have originally, was split in half when in contact with the seal and half of it goes to the throw and the other half connects your mind to the weapon in a way that makes it possible to control where the blade or needle makes contact. He wouldn't have been able to without Kurama's help of course, but soon.
Turns out that that Minato guy was the Yondaime. And the woman with the pretty red hair was his wife, Kushina Uzumaki-Namikaze. His last name was Uzumaki.
Huh.