Amidst the Hate: Chapter 1
A young girl, probably around seven, was in her father's study, searching every inch for something to read. The girl has the strangest hair color, stark white, and her eyes were a deep, royal purple. She wore a dark red shirt and black pants, and had a scowl etched on her whiskered, pale face. 'What does dad do up here? There's only a desk, a chair, and who knows how many strange markings on the walls!' She checked the desk, finding some drawers, and tried to open it, failing. Looking closer at it, it too had a weird mark on it. "Why is that even there?!"
Just then, the door to the study opened from behind her.
"Anza? What are you doing in here?" a male voice said.
The now named Anza turned, and saw her father. The man wore the standard outfit of Konoha's shinobi without the flak jacket, had blonde hair that could be recognized a mile away, and deep blue eyes. This was Minato Namikaze, the Hokage. Unbeknownst to her, he shouldn't even be alive, but that is a tale for another time. For now, she said what was currently her mission. "I want something to read!"
The Fourth Hokage smiled. "There are plenty of books downstairs. Why not read those?"
"They're not big enough! I want something that I can't read in two days!"
Minato couldn't help but chuckle at that. 'I guess she's like me when I was her age. I always wanted to increase my knowledge and read the hardest books...' "Okay, I think there's something here that would be suitable for you." He went to the drawer that he saw his daughter leering at, and put some chakra into the seal, unlocking it. Pulling it open, the only thing in it was a single book. "Here, this is one of my favorite stories."
Anza reached in, grabbed the book, and held it up to her face. "'Tale of the Utterly Gutsy Shinobi, made by Jiraiya.' Uncle Jiraiya wrote this?"
"I'll never know why you insist on calling him uncle, but yes. It was his first book, and I think you'll enjoy it."
The white haired child looked at the book again. 'It has many more pages than the others...' She looked up at her father with a smile that was reminiscent of her mother. "Thanks, dad!"
"Your welcome. Come on, it's dinner time, and your mother and sister sent me to find you."
The little girls eyes widened. 'I was so busy looking for a book that I forgot what time it was!' Anza lowered her head in shame. "Sorry…"
"Hey, don't look like it's your fault! You just wanted something to do, and now you have it. Let's just go to the dining room."
"'Kay…" The father-daughter duo left the study and went to where the rest of their family was. When they got there, Anza was given a curious stare by the matriarch of the house, Kushina Uzumaki. She had bright red hair, violet eyes similar to Anza's own, and wore a white blouse under a loose green dress, her usual attire.
"What do you have there? Found a new thing to read?" the redhead said with a happy smile. Her whiskered child could read nearly anything they gave her in only a few days, a much faster pace than her twin, who liked doing the more physical things, like running.
"Yeah! One of Uncle Jiraiya's books!" Anza said as she sat next to her sister, Mito. If one were to look at the two of them, the only differences between them were that Mito had the same blonde hair and blue eyes as Minato, and that she didn't have the whiskers that Anza had. She also liked to wear orange as much as possible, to everyone's confusion.
This answer caused Kushina's eyes to widen with horror. "Minato!"
"It's not one of those books, I swear!" The young Hokage looked to his daughter with panic in his normally calm eyes. "Tell her the title, Anza."
"Okay… 'The Tale of the Utterly Gutsy Shinobi'."
The Uzumaki let a sigh escape from her lips. "Thank Kami. If it was one of his other books, I would have to beat your father into a bloody pulp." Everyone heard Minato gulp, but ignored it. "Anyway, we should eat. It's ramen!"
The twins and their mother dived into their food without another word and started eating like it was going to be their last meal. Minato watched the spectacle with amazement. 'No matter how many times I see it, I'm still fascinated by how much ramen they eat. Is it an Uzumaki thing? I haven't met anyone else that eats just one thing this fast...ah well, I better eat before it gets cold.' The Yellow Flash started eating...just not with the same fervor as female brigade.
-later that night: Twins Bedroom-
'This...is amazing!' Anza sat on her blood red bed reading her new book, and it simply is the best thing she's read so far.
"We should be getting ready for bed." spoke her sister from her side of the room.
"I know, but I can't put this down!"
"What is it about?" Mito was confused. 'A book can't be that good, can it?'
"I haven't gotten far, but it's about a man named Naruto and his adventures. Ooh, right here, he says : 'I will bring all wars to an end, and give the world peace.' Isn't that cool?"
"All wars? How can one man do that?"
"I don't know, but I'm going to find out!" The white haired girl went back to reading.
"Hey, let me see it!" Mito got off her bed, went over to Anza's, plopped down on it, and tried to read it. Luckily, her sister slowed down so that they could read at around the same pace.
-an hour of reading later-
"Wow, this guy is awesome!" quietly exclaimed Mito. By now, their parents were probably asleep, so they had to be as silent as possible.
"Yeah, he saved some villagers from bandits, helped solve a mystery, and beat an evil shinobi in one on one combat, and we're not even half way through it!"
The blonde took a thinking look on her face, before gaining determination in her eyes. "I have in idea."
"What would that be?"
"Let's be like Naruto, and become ninja!"
Anza's brows furrowed. "I don't know, Mito...it seems like it would be a hard life…"
"Aww, come on! If we become ninja, we would be able to do all the awesome things he can do!"
"Awesome things...like help people...alright, we'll do that, together."
"Yeah! Let's shake on it!" The girls did, and Anza closed the book afterward.
"We need to go to bed, otherwise we'll sleep the day away."
"Right." Mito went back to her blue bed, and got under the covers. "Night."
"Night." The snow haired girl went to sleep, thinking about being in Naruto's place, and one thing in particular. 'Peace…what is it?'
(Long A.N. ahead) And I'm back. I have decided to go a slightly different route with this rewrite, so if you want a 'Minato+Kushina abandonment story', sorry. I don't particularly like them, I hated making one, and I have a better way to get to where I want. This will also be...slower than the previous version. If you have read what's in the 'original', you have in idea where I'm going to go. If you have read my final author's note in that one, I will put this out there, I will not be changing up my story again just because I get a constructive review. I changed it hopefully for the better, so we'll see how that goes. I also have to say this so I don't have to mention it later: I can't bring myself to change some characters names, like Mito. I got it from 'The Overlooked Prodigy' by Rookie14, and I grew attached. Kinda like the name of the story, it can't really be called 'Amidst the Hate' until MUCH later, but I have nothing else to call it. So...yeah. Leave reviews when you feel like it, have questions, leave them in those. Will update two a day when a have two to give. Don't own Naruto.