Braveheart
I shall tell you of Namikaze Naruto. Historians from Otogakure will say I am a liar, but history is written by those who have hanged heroes. The king of Konihagakure had died without a son, and the king of Otogakure, a cruel pagan known as Orochimaru, claimed the throne of Konohagakure for himself. Konoha's nobles fought him, and fought each other, over the crown. So Orochimaru invited them to talks of truce - no weapons, one page only. Among the farmers of that shire was Namikaze Minato, a commoner with his own lands; he had two sons, Arashi and Naruto...
Minato was a very handsome man, according to most Konoha women. He stood at approximately five foot eight inches, had a well-structured body- muscular, but not bulky- and had features that could strike a woman down with just a glance.
He was very tan, what with working on his farm since he was just a boy. He had the most magnificent blue eyes that people just got absorbed in when staring. His golden blonde hair seemed to be kissed by the sun itself in all of it's exuberance. All in all, he was quite a sought after man. And, of course, he lucked out. His genes were stronger than his late wife's, Uzumaki Kushina. Both of his sons were splitting images of him.
There's something needing mentioning when it comes to Minato. He was, and is. a very hard man to anger. Years of being a farmer in Konohagakure while being under Oto's rule taught the man patience. But nothing is quite like the annoying pestering of a son.
"I told ye to stay," Minato sighed exasperatedly, annoyed that his son, Naruto, kept annoying him about going to the peace talks with Orochimaru.
"But I finished my work. Where're we goin'?" Naruto asked, expecting to be able to go.
"Sarutobis'. He was supposed to visit when the gatherin' was over," Arashi replied, equally annoyed at his brother as his father was.
"Can I come?" Naruto asked in high hopes. He very rarely ever got to leave his home due to all the work that needed to be done, especially after his mother died.
"No! Go home, boy. I'm not telling you anymore!" his father, Minato, replied.
Not happy with the response, he whined back, "But I want to go..."
Finally fed up with his son being a nuisance, he gave his final reply. "Go home, Naruto, or you'll feel the back o' my hand."
With that, Naruto started to slowly back away, watching as his father and brother turned around and rode their horses off into the distance...
After a couple hours of riding, Minato and Arashi arrived at the Sarutobi's lands, coming upon an eerie silence.
Standing outside the house, slightly worried, Minato started to scream for Hiruzen, the head of the Sarutobis, "Hiruzen; Hiruzen!"
Not recieving any answer, Minato and Arashi decided to walk in the house. "Kami-sama!" Arashi yelled.
Hanging from the ceiling were the bodies of the thirty men that were supposed to be meeting with Orochimaru.
"Be quiet, Arashi. Someone's at the door." Minato said, grabbing Arashi's axe in case it was someone from Oto.
Minato relaxed some when he saw who it was, "Naruto! What are you doing here? I thought I told you to stay at home!" Minato started to approach Naruto, not wanting Naruto to see what was inside. When Minato did that, however, Naruto panicked, running right through the house filled with hanging corpses.
Not expecting this in the least, Naruto had screamed in terror. Minato reached out and grabbed Naruto, trying to comfort him, "It's all right! Naruto! Everything will be alright!"
Minato sighed in relief, seeing his son starting to calm down some from this scarring event. "It's all right. Easy lad."
Later on that night, they had returned to their home. They had all fallen asleep, some more peaceful than others. Naruto had a dream that he would never forget.
He was once again at the Sarutobi's house. This time his father had failed to grab him so Naruto was able to keep running. About halfway through the house, he noticed the sizes of the bodies started to get smaller. The feet started to get higher. He stopped running and looked up.
There, only the back of a boy was visible to Naruto. It started to slowly turn around. Naruto could see the lifeless eyes. The pale skin caused only from hanging for so long. And then the dead boy screamed.
"Naruto!"
With that, he woke with a jolt, not able to go back to sleep for the rest of the night.
At the Namikaze's house, there was a meeting going on between the local families.
"I say we hit back now." the voice of Namikaze Minato rose up. "I'm tired of this whole mess and look what they did." Minato was beyond angry at what the filthy bastard Orochimaru did at his so-called peace talk.
Nara Shikaku was the first to respond. "We cannot fight them. It'll be suicide! Their numbers are vastly superior to whatever we hope to be able to scrap together!"
Akimichi Chouza spoke up, "I feel that Namikaze is right. We must fight them for their treachery and deception!"
Shikaku mad that his friend disagreed with him, tried throwing in the logic, "Every nobleman who had the will to fight was at that meeting. We cannot beat an army. Not with 50 farmers. It's impossible!"
"We do not have to beat them. Just fight them, Shikaku. Now who's with me?" Minato asked.
After hearing a roar of approval from everyone present, some more reluctant than others, Minato smirked. "We set out at dawn."
The following morning Minato walked outside with his newly sharpened sword to see his son, Naruto, sitting atop his horse.
"And what exactly do you think you're going?" Minato asked, knowing the answer.
"I'm going with you, of course." Naruto replied.
"You're going with are you? And what are you going to do?" Minato asked with a slight chuckle at the end.
Naruto replied confidently, "I'm gonna help."
"And a good help you'd be..." Minato paused for a moment," BUT, I need you to stay here and look after the place for us while me and Arashi are away."
Naruto was shocked. His father was denying him the right to fight the English when he was being just as oppressed by them as his father was? That's just bot fair! "But I can fight! I want to fight!"
"I know. I know you can fight. I know you could fight if need be. But it's our wits that make us men. See you tomorrow."
As the day went on, Naruto started to get bored with tending to the farm, so he went over to his neighbors, the Akimichis, and asked Chouji if he would like to go to their hideout and train to take on Oto.
Their hideout was on a hill near a small river close to a well-travelled trail that led to the local Oto garrison. The boys were wrestling around when they heard footsteps. They went to take a look.
"It's some Oto," Chouji frantically whispered, scared of being seen. The Oto didn't take too kindly to kids, especially Konoha kids, being too close to them.
"Get down." Naruto replied. "We don't want them seeing us, do we?"
The group of Oto soldiers walked by, not noticing the two boys or the two skulls with the Oto symbol carved into where the forehead would be.
"With your father and brother gone, they'll kill us and burn the farm." Chouji said.
"It's up to us, Chouji, to protect our home!" came Naruto's reply.
Both boys ran out behind their hiding spot and screamed, running after the trail the Oto soldiers walked on. They both picked up a couple of rocks and flanged them, Naruto hitting the skull on the left, and Chouji missing his.
After Chouji noticed that he missed and Naruto's hit, Chouji turned to Naruto and punched him square in the face. After that, they continued to wrestle.
The next day, Naruto had woken up bright and early, ready to start off the days work. Naruto went outside to fetch some water and noticed the men returning from battle.
As the men marched closer, he noticed all of their grim faces. He then noticed something very grave.
His father and brother weren't walking with the men and the men were walking right to him. Realizing what this meant, he quickly turned around, not wanting to face the reality that the last of his family was dead.
Chouza, noticing Naruto, spoke. "Naruto, come here."
Naruto walked up to the cart the men were pulling. There he saw his father and brother laying side-by-side. They had many cuts and lacerations all over their bloodied bodies. Naruto layer a hand on his father's chest, feeling the cold, lifeless corpse that was the complete opposite of how his father was just the day before. A tear slowly falls out of Naruto's eye. He turned and walked away, heading to his house to go to bed and forget about everything.
A couple days later, the funeral for Minato and Arashi took place.
"... Amen." A chorus of amens rang through the graveyard as the priest had just finished the ceremony and the respective bodies were placed in their graves.
Everyone at the funeral had started to leave, except for Naruto. A girl, noticing that Naruto stayed behind, picked a flower and started walking towards Naruto.
As she handed handed Naruto the flower, her sea-foam green eyes stared right into his eyes. She decided to introduce herself. "My name's Sakura."
Surprised that this Sakura girl handed him a flower, he took a second to respond. "Naruto. Thank you for the flower."
Naruto watched as Sakura walked away, watching her bubblegum pink hair swayed in the wind, happy that in this time of disparity; there was still love in the world after all.
That's when he heard hooves. Naruto quickly turned around in surprise as a man atop a beautiful stallion rode up to him.
This man was a fairly large man. He had to be six foot. He had the most remarkably white hair that Naruto had ever seen. He wore obscure green and red robes and matching pants that fit to his bulky frame.
"Hello, Naruto. I'm you're uncle, Jiraiya. You look exactly like your father." this newly appointed Jiraiya stated.
It was dinner time at the Namikaze's. Naruto and Jiraiya were at the table eating when Jiraiya grew uncomfortable with the awkward silence that seemed to envelope them.
"We'll stay here for the night. Tomorrow you'll co e with me." Jiraiya stated, mentally planning out what he was going to do with the boy.
"I don't want to leave, though." came Naruto's reply.
Jiraiya, anticipating this remark, already knew what to respond back with. "You didn't want your father to die, either. But guess what. It happened. Now, did the priest give a poetic benediction? "Kami bless thee and keep thee"...?"
"I don't know. He spoke in Iwa," was Naruto's reply.
"Oh, you don't speak Iwa, now? Well, that's something we'll have to remedy, isn't it?"
After they were done with dinner, Jiraiya noticed how Naruto kept looking over at his sword.
Picking up the sword, he tapped Naruto on the forehead, "First learn how to use this. Then I'll let you learn how to use," he gestured to the sword, "this."
After that they mounted Jiraiya's horse leaving the farm for quite some time...