I don't own Naruto or any of the characters used in here. They are all from the anime series.

Reviews are much appreciated, as this is my first fan fiction.

"Get out of here!"

"Demon scum!"

"Stay away from our children!"

"Why don't you just die, that way you can join all the other demons!"

Running as swiftly as he could through the villagers, with tears streaming down his face, the young blonde boy did his best to ignore the piercing glares of absolute hatred that were being thrown in his direction. One day… He was going to show them that he wasn't a demon. One day… they would respect him! One day…

"I'm going to be Hokage! Then you'll all have to respect me! You'll see!"

He couldn't go on, and broke down, sobs racking his body as he ran, towards the place that had been his only refuge for as long as he could remember. Climbing onto the all too familiar wooden swing, he sat alone, watching the other children his age play with each other, or laugh with their parents.

'They all look so happy,' he thought sadly to himself.

'They have no idea what it's like to be me, to have no friends, and no parents… No home…'

Or maybe some did… Looking up, he heard somebody else crying, and saw a rather overweight-looking child, dressed in green, and with peculiar swirl marks on his cheeks. From what Naruto could see, he had been rejected as well by the other kids in a game of ninja.

'This is my chance… I may actually be able to make a friend.'

Hearing footsteps behind him, the large child was having similar thoughts.

'Maybe somebody actually wants to know me for something other than my size?'

However, turning around, he saw that it was a blonde, dressed in bright orange. And his hopes dropped.

'Oh… its him. My mummy and daddy never said anything to me about him, and they seemed pretty upset for some reason, but Sakura's mummy said to stay away from him because he's a bad boy!'

After approaching the boy slowly, he straightened up, which caught the other boy's attention. Turning around to face him, Naruto decided that it was best if he spoke first.

"Hi I'm Naruto! Do you want to play?" asked Naruto with a grin, sure that this boy would want to hang out with him.

"Im Chouji. But there is no way I'm playing with you! All the adults say that you're a bad boy, and we can't be near you!"

The reaction that the blonde gave back wasn't the one he'd expected. An even wider grin, as if forced, plastered itself onto the boy's face, and a happy voice replied,

"Haha… no big deal, I was just wondering that's all! Anyway, cya around!"

Shrugging, Chouji turned around and pulled out a packet of chips, munching on them to feed his hunger, both physical hunger, and a yearning for a true friend. Feeling slightly bad about how he'd treated the other child, he turned to offer him some. But Naruto had already disappeared.

'I'm still alone…'

He was back at his special spot by the tree, sitting on the swing, once again staring at all the families swarming around the ninja academy in front of him. Children showing off new taijutsu techniques that they'd learnt, others throwing shuriken and kunai at targets with their friends. The familiar feeling of loneliness returned, he didn't have anyone like that to show off to, and nobody to help him practice…

"Hah… not like I have anything to show off too, even if my parents weren't dead. I wonder what they'd think if they saw me now…" he thought bitterly to himself.

He needed a place to think, where he could be spared the sight of the things he didn't have, right in front of his face. And aside from his place on the swing, there was only one spot which could provide this kind of comfort.

"Ok, off to the Hokage monument I guess," he said out loud. For a moment, he stood still, questioning his own sanity and talking to himself, but shrugged it off. "Not like anybody else is here to listen anyway."

Little did he know, that a small, timid looking dark blue-hard girl with white eyes, was cautiously watching him from behind a tree.

"Naruto…" she whispered to herself.

'You don't have to always be alone…'

On top of the Hokage monument, Naruto sat on the Fourth Hokage's face. There wasn't a particular reason for it, it just seemed more appealing than the creepy looking carved faces of the 1st and 2nd Hokages. And the 3rd… urgh… the thought of the old man being young… How could he possibly sit on that? But wondering through his thoughts for the reason for his sitting location only distracted him for a moment from his current situation. According to what he'd been told by some of the more tolerant villagers, he was turning 10 in a few days. Any other child would have been delighted that they were growing up. But as for Naruto…

As the blonde child thought about his upcoming birthday, he visibly sagged, head hanging down, and began to cry. Crying because he had no parents to celebrate with. Crying because the villagers would be celebrating the nine tailed fox demon's defeat, and cursing his birth. Crying, because in the ten years that he had been alive, nothing had changed. He was still despised by almost everybody, children included, for some unknown reason. Was it because he was an orphan? No… he alone had been kicked out of the orphanage once he'd turned three, whilst he'd met children as old as eight or nine years old still living there.

"Why... Why does everybody hate me so much?"

He looked up to the sky, through a vision blurred by tears. At that moment, Naruto felt as if he could die, and he knew that if he vanished, none of the villagers would care, in fact, they would celebrate. For a split second, he was tempted to push off the Fourth Hokage's face in the rock, and fall to the ground below…

But his body suddenly froze, his mind went crazy, reeling with images of the few who had been kind and cared for him. Teuchi, the guy who'd always given him free ramen whenever he didn't have the money to pay for it. The old man Hokage, who'd provided him with a living space. And that weird white eyed girl he'd seen once in a while, who hadn't come over to talk to him, but had never teased or mocked him. Finally, he remembered his dream.

'To become Hokage! That is my dream!'

Clenching his tiny hands into fists, Naruto backpedalled as fast as he could away from the edge of the Hokage monument…

Having calmed down a little, Naruto stood up, and looked at Konoha, the village hidden in the leaves from the Hokage monument.

"I never go back on my word! And that's my ninja way! You all hear that? My name's Naruto Uzumaki, and before you know it, I'll be the greatest Hokage the leaf village ever had!" he shouted out. With a grin, a real one, instead of the mask he usually had to wear, he remembered that his time at the ninja academy was going to begin soon, just one day after his tenth birthday. It was his first step to becoming a ninja of the leaf village at last, and his first step to earning the village's respect. Little did Naruto know, that he was being observed from afar.

Gazing into the crystal ball, the Third Hokage smiled to himself.

"Seems like the boy has, at least for the time being, managed to secure himself a reason to go on. And quite a reasonable one at that. Unlike that Uchiha child…"

Frowning, he moved his left hand, and the crystal ball instantly flickered, solidifying the image to focus on Sasuke Uchiha. A pale skinned child, with black hair, dressed in dark blue clothing and sporting the symbol of the Uchiha clan on his back. In his eyes, Sarutobi could see fear and anger, but most prominent of all, a thirst for blood. His facial emotion was no different, mouth set in a taut line, giving his face a look that said "I am constantly pissed off."

Laughing slightly to himself, the Third Hokage couldn't help but compare this character to Naruto, and how their personalities were completely different, despite both having no parents.

"Yes… Definitely a good thing that Naruto hasn't turned out to be like him."

So... reviews please :)