Disclaimer: ~Rolls eyes~ I think we both know by now how these things work. I don't own, and If I did... Naruto wouldn't be the same awesome story that we know and love.

The young girl stares at the silent woman as she glares down at her from her spot on the porch. The younger fliches when the woman starts yelling at her again. "Get out of here you monster! Shoo! My job is to help children get adopted and I won't have you here to mess up their chance at happiness!"

Hot tears fall from the young girls eyes and she turns and runs blindly away from the angry woman. It has always been like this for the girl. She remembers the time when she had finally managed to sneak out of the orphanage with some money she found and saved to go and try to buy some food.

~Flashback~

The nurses always told her that she didn't deserve any because of all the people she hurt but she doesn't remember hurting anyone. They also call her 'monster' or 'beast' but that's not her name. Her name is Naruto but she likes Naru better.

Naru was walking through a crowded street when someone noticed her and seemed to know who she was. He whispered to the people next to him and from there the whispers spread. All around her people scattered out of the way and stood on their tiptoes to try and see her. She ignored them and walked to a small shop that sold bread.

Before she cold get there a woman grabbed her shoulder and shook her head. She had dark but kind eyes and her hair swayed gently in the evening breeze. "Go home, It's not safe for you here." She whispered so quietly that the girl almost didn't hear her.

Naru glanced longingly at the bread. The woman followed her hungry gaze and her heart broke for the young girl. The woman stuffed a warm bundle of her own bread into the girls hands. The girl offered her the money but she refused to take it. "Take this too." She tells Naru as she puts something into her other hand.

She looked down at it but all she could see was a small brown bag. "Thank you." She told her with gratitude. A small smile lifted the corners of the woman's mouth and she steered Naru so that she was facing the way she took to get here. The girl remembers taking off a small piece of the bread and obediently began walking as she ate it, taking the time to savor the feeling of food in her stomach.

She shoved the rest of the bread into her pocket with the brown bag. She is used to never feeling full, so for now the small bit that she ate is enough. The sun dipped lower into the sky, casting the abandoned streets into shadows. Naru was trying to follow the kind woman's advice when she got lost and barely managed to find her way back to the street in front of the orphanage.

The doors bursted open and the angry nurse come out yelling at the girl telling her that she should have stayed in bed like a 'good little demon' because for all they knew she was 'out slaying the whole village.'

~End Flashback~

That was the night she was literally kicked out. Naru wandered around for over a month by herself, trying to stay alive wherever and however she could. After the fourth week she was so tired and weak from the number af beatings and lack of food that she decided that she just wanted to sleep and never wake up.

With an effort that was beyond what she had thought her small body was capable of, she made her way to the one quiet place in the village she could find. The monument in remembrance of the fourth Hokage. She slowly traces her tiny fingers over the lines that spell out his name and feels a small amount of pride at the fact that she taught herself how to read and could now recognize his name.

A sharp pain runs through Naru's stomach but she ignores the insistent growling. She closes her eyes and thinks about the bag that the woman had left her with. It turned out to be a kind of candy and It lasted for three weeks before she finally emptied the bag of the last precious piece.

After that the small girl slowly got more and more hungry. She curls up on her side with her back to the warm stone of the monument and lets the darkness overcome her.

"..id!"

"Hey!"

"Hey kid!"

"Wake up!"

A gentle shaking rocks Naruto's body back and fourth uncomfortably and she opens her eyes to find a very large man with white hair reaching out to shake her again. She moans and hears him sigh with relief. Her eyes fly open when she feels his arms pick her swiftly up off of the ground. "Why...?" she tries to ask. "It looks like you need someone to take care of you and I think I will be the perfect man for the job." He answers truthfully with a lopsided grin. "Thank you." She whispers for the second time in her life. She lets the gentle sway of his footsteps lull her back into sleep.

The next time she wakes up was to the face of a woman she has never met before holding her wrist with two fingers placed just below her thumb. "Welcome back to the world of the living. The pervert has admitted that he needs help for once so until I stop gloating over my victory, you and I are going to be stuck together like glue."

As she talked she pointed to a heap of 'clothing' on the ground that shifted and let out a moan. A satisfied look crossed her features and the girl laughed at them as soon as she realizes that the two of them are only playing. After four years of hate and rage the laughter was foreign to her body. After the adults come out of their stunned silence they join her. Naru listens to the way their laughter harmonizes with her own and makes a decision.

'I will do what I can to keep anyone else from crying because laughing feels so much better.' It may be a child's naïve dream, but it is that naïve dream that she works constantly to turn into reality.