White and Gold
The Chthonic Professor
Summary: With only vaguely fuzzy memories of a past life guiding him, Sendokutsu finds himself living in an orphanage alongside Naruto. Even in a village where having green and blue and purple hair is normal, Sendokutsu's hair is white as snow. His only goals in life? To be there for Naruto, and to find out who his parents were. Self-Insert.
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.
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Prologue
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His first happy memory was of Uzumaki Naruto.
he'd always been an odd child. Nearly from birth people had been calling him a prodigy and a genius. He guessed it probably stemmed from the fact that he'd taught himself to read at a decently intellectual level by the age of three? He wasn't really sure, honestly. All he knew was that the praises heaped upon him by the adults caused most other children to shy away from him.
To the other children he was weird. Even amongst the children in the orphanage, those his age were boring and annoying to him, and those who were older thought he was creepy and were freaked out by his intelligence.
He didn't really know why he was so smart. It was just easy for him to pick up words, as if he already knew what they were and had simply forgotten for a short period of time.
So, of course, his first memory of Uzumaki Naruto included words.
The first time he saw Uzumaki Naruto, with his wild blond hair and his impossibly deep blue eyes and his chubby whiskered cheeks, he nearly blacked out. An image of a boy, face flat like a cartoon character's, flashed through his mind. For some reason he couldn't comprehend, he knew this boy.
It didn't make sense. he'd never seen the boy before, as the matrons of the orphanage often kept the boy separate from the others. He didn't know the reason why, but it was one of the reasons he'd put on a cold front for the adults, despite their many praises of his abilities. Any adult who could take a child, lock him in isolation, and neglect him weren't adults that he - even at that young age - wanted to associate himself with.
So, when the boy first approached him, grubby hands clenched tightly around the spine of an old, worn book, he did not deny the boy.
The boy claimed that he'd always had the book, that the matrons claimed it had been with him when he'd shown up on the doorstep. The boy wanted to read it, to know why it was with him, but the matrons refused to teach him how to read.
So, hearing about his own prodigious literary capabilities, Naruto had approached him.
This was his first memory. The memory of two three year old boys, curled up beneath threadbare covers, reading to each other by the light of an oil lamp.
Sendokutsu's first memory was of reading The Tale of an Utterly Gutsy Shinobi to Naruto.
They'd been absolutely enchanted by the book. It was fascinating that the main character had the same name as Naruto, and Sendokutsu suspected Naruto was actually named after the character in the book, if the book had been with him since he'd arrived at the orphanage.
More than their fascination with the main character's name, however, was their fascination with his personality. He was a hero unlike any other, one who fought for peace and freedom in a world of lies and deceit.
The moral of the story was an important one, and it was a lesson that both boys would take to heart.
From the moment that they had huddled up together beneath those threadbare sheets, book open under the soft light of a pilfered oil lamp, the two boys had become inseparable. Even when all others would shun and ignore Naruto, when the whole world was against him, Sendokutsu had stayed by his side. They'd survived the orphanage together, facing the scorn and slander of the matrons and orphans alike.
They'd endured this treatment for three whole years together, and now, at the age of six, things had finally changed for the better. The Sandaime had intervened.
Hand-in-hand, with the wizened old leader standing just over their shoulders, Uzumaki Naruto and Sendokutsu stared up at a plain wooden door. The Sandaime, no, the Old Man, had finally deemed the two of them old enough to take care of themselves.
Naruto took a deep breath, squeezed Sendokutsu's fingers his his tiny hand, and inserted the plain metal key into an old rusty lock. He grunted, twisted the key, and a loud 'Click' echoed through the hallway.
Naruto pushed open the door to their apartment, and all was right in the world.
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AN: I really have to stop doing this. I should be doing my homework instead, but this wouldn't leave me alone. For those of you who are curious, I'm still writing Santoryu no Naruto, I've just hit a bit of a block. I was actually thinking of possibly updating Migraines, and even One Man Army sometime soon. Well, I should probably get back to my homework.
Peace!
The Chthonic Professor