Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, just the Gushikans.
Chapter 1~ Rebirth
Where am I? Am I dead or alive? Who am I? I don't see anything and all I feel is warmth.
A moment, a moment where I see a name. Naruto. That name, why do I remember it? What does it mean? And I have confused myself to oblivion. I sit and think for what seems like an eternity. It's like the explanation is on the tip of my tongue but I can't get the words out. And then sudden movement.
I am being squeezed and it hurts. At first, I'm blinded by a white light but then I began to see colors all around me. Its hard to make out things but I manage, barely. I am being held by a man all in white, he seems like a giant to me and I don't know why I'm confused by that, but I am. It's all a mystery, and I'm angry that I have no memory so I scream in anger and cry. The man smiles and wraps me in a pink cloth, then puts me in the arms of a beautiful frail-looking young woman.
She has a huge grin on her face and despite being exhausted she looks ecstatic. She has fair skin and plum colored long hair and deep purple warm eyes. A man looms over her shoulder, and he offers me a small smile. He seems nervous and glances at the door as if expecting someone to walk in at any moment. He is a mountain of a man and looks like a bear. He has light brown curly hair and a thick beard which complements his brown eyes with tanned skin.
"Hello my treasure, hello baby girl," the woman coos as she strokes my hand and nuzzles me. She looks over at the man and smiles tiredly. The man looks at her with a serious face. "Ume, you need to sleep, I can watch the baby." But 'Ume' just smiles at me again, ignoring the man's words. "What should we name her Tenchi?" Tenchi just sighs and glances down at me. "You know you get to name her..." He whispers. Ume looks up grinning and eagerly leans over me, studying my features. She has long eyelashes and a perfect face; all I hope is that I look like her.
She sits there for a long while absorbing my features before nodding her head confirming something. "Takara, my treasure". She turns and looks at Tenchi, he nods in approval before leaning down to kiss Ume and take me from her arms. He cradles me gently in his large arms. He looks back to Ume who was beginning to fall asleep, then back to me. "Hi curly top, it's nice to finally meet you", he gently strokes my head, before leaning very close to kiss my forehead and whisper "We live in a crazy world but promise that will always protect you, my beautiful daughter." He walks over to a chair to sit down and holds me close. "Sleep now, you need it more than ever." I felt exhausted and quickly fell into a deep sleep.
After a few days in the white place, Ume and Tenchi took me home. I couldn't see much, my eyes are crap right now, but the place smelled of lilac and... Iron? Weird. I mostly slept, ate, and dirtied myself but besides being played with by Ume and to a lesser extent Tenchi, I spent a great deal of my time trying to remember what I had forgotten. I'm not sure what it was but I know it was important.
Then one night I felt it. It's hard to describe, but it was bloodlust, hate, and fear all smashed together. I could hear screams, terrifying me. All I could do was cry while Ume held me in her tense arms. Tenchi had left when it arrived and when it left he came home. He was quiet, shocked, and angry. I listened to him recount the event while in Ume's arms.
A fox demon came and killed a lot of people; our leader is dead and we are weak.
This was enough.
Naruto.
There's that name again. I still don't know who or what it is, but it's been on my mind a lot and I know the attack had something to do with it.
Nonetheless, time passes. Before too long I was gurgling and rolling about trying to talk to 'mama' and 'dad'.
I had eventually re-laid a "Mama" and Ume about had a heart attack. She held me tightly spinning around laughing and called for Tenchi. When he arrived and heard the news he looked happy but a little put off so I managed a "Dada" which made him laugh. His enormous body shook as he picked up Ume and me in his arms in a hug.
My first birthday came around, not much of a party but it was fun, and I began to pull myself up and putter around mama and dada. I now know we live in a small house on the edge of town, due to the rare store visits with Mama. But, it's close to a training field from Dad's stories. I had even got to look in the full-length mirror mama had in her bedroom. I had dads curly light brown hair and slightly tanned skin but also with mamas purple eyes. Not her intoxicating and beautiful eyes as dad puts it but a darker maybe poisonous purple in my opinion. Not as gentle, warm, and loving as hers.
My mom after her year off had to return to work in the prison as head of the Konoha Torture and Interrogation Force. My father was an Anbu squad leader with a strangely fitting bear mask. Somehow I knew what both these jobs were when I heard them despite they not telling me, this happened sometimes. It didn't bother me when that happened, what did bother me was that it's hard to believe that my kind soft warm hearten mom was in such a job. When I was three, I was finally able to express this, learning to talk is oddly hard. So I asked her in my squeaky kiddie voice why she has that job.
"Well, there will always be bad people in this world who want to hurt us." She started hesitantly. "You see when you daddy gets the bad guys he gives them to me so that I find out what we need to do to stay safe. So I gather info and sometimes I just need to push them is all." It was a simple answer and a good enough one for now. I realize I'm too young to know the gory details.
At four my dad started to take me outside with rubber kunai to practice throwing and would meditate with me. Mom really was not pleased, saying I'm too young for training and just about decked dad when he said they should enroll me a few years early. "Mama, I wanna be a ninja like you and daddy too!" I squeaked I'm my prepubescent girly voice. She allows herself a smile, but it fades.
"Takara you are much too young. You are my baby, and how can I expect you to be a ninja when you don't even know simple academic things yet?" My father smiles slyly and responds "How about I train her from ten to five and you teach her in the morning and before bed?" Seeing our hopeful faces and realizing we'd never stop training, her permission or not, she gives a reluctant ok.
So my schedule stayed at wake up before the sun to study kanji which is the most horrible thing ever! It's confusing and hard and makes my kid brain want to cry. Before I could read very simple words like cat and hat and I could write my name but that was it.
Then arithmetic which was easy and it all came to me quickly, it was as if I had already been taught it... That went on till ten, then dad would stretch with me, we would meditate, practice throwing, work on endurance, and finally, we would finish with some taijutsu.
We would have dinner and then review the lesson and study history till I slept.
This was all fine and dandy but I had never forgotten the name Naruto. It still baffled me why I won't forget it.
I also know people, jobs, history, and arithmetic without any trouble. Which was strange, especially when my parents didn't tell or teach me half the stuff I knew already.
Before I would enter school I would already be able to do geometry and be working on trigonometry with my mom. I would also know the history of Konoha backward and forwards. Although that took longer than math, and it took me just a week until school to read kanji perfectly.
On the other end of the spectrum, while practicing taijutsu dad began to secretly put weight bands on my legs and arms. It took one look for my mom to realize what happened.
He slept on the couch for a week but mom eventually came around and let me wear them. I was super slow but as time passed and dad added more weight I felt strong and I actually was.
My parents are pretty reclusive, dad being in the Anbu means he spends most of his time working on missions and doesn't have many friends except his team. But of course being in the Anbu means secrets and not giving away your identity... and never actually see your friends in the open except every year once, for a dinner.
My mom hates drama so to cut out the middle man she barely has any friends except the people she works with.
Then there is the fact that both of them have high positions so they never let me roam around alone so that I don't get kidnapped. So that means the only other person I see regularly is my aunt Anko. She is my mom's younger 18-year-old sister and is super cool. She tries to teach me simple jutsu (Although she stinks at it, I haven't been able to do one yet!) and would watch me when mom and dad were gone. Anko would take me out for food a lot so through her I got to see the outside world. However, I was awkward and nervous of people, so I don't make any friends on my outside visits.
One day, a week before I would enter the academy, I was eating with Anko when a boy with blond hair ran past, away from shouts, and the moment I saw him 'Naruto' flashed through my head.
Despite myself, I got up from the chair yelled I'd be right back and took off after Naruto. 'Find him, he needs a friend' pushed through my brain. I didn't know where it was coming from, so I just obeyed it.
I finally found him sitting against a tree crying.
"Hello?" I asked cautiously. He looked up and wiped his face.
"I'm not crying!" He yelled. I didn't know what to do so I just sat down next to him.
"My name is Takara Gushikan, what's yours?"
"Naruto Uzumaki" he answered tentatively. I smiled a bit, and he smiled a tiny bit too.
"Are you going to the academy too?" He asked shyly. "Yes, I am! I can't wait to beat bad guys!" I excitedly wave my arms. "Me too! And, I'm going to be the Hokage!" He said jumping up in excitement.
Thus, a friendship was born.
Authors note:
Hey, this is my first story so ya. Please comment if you liked it or not, I accept I'm going to be bad at first so tell what I'm doing wrong so I can fix it. Anyway thanks for reading it, byby.
Thank you and have a nice day!
~ToL