What are we?
Summary: Naruto is paranoid and wants to be Hokage. Sasuke is silent and wants to avenge his clan. Sakura is hyper and wants to stay with her beloved friend forever. They're all a little messed up but, they fearlessly strive to accomplish their dreams. Paranoid!Naruto Humble!Sasuke Hyper!Sakura.
"Life is cruel, but, so is death."
When Kakashi meets his new team he thinks the Gods hate him. Or maybe the Sandaime Hokage hates him. Either way, someone clearly hates him.
He had heard stories about these three. Sandaime-sama had referred to them using his favourite line that always made Kakashi want to throw his head to the heavens and sigh the loudest sigh ever heard in the history of Konoha.
"A hopeless fool, a skilled prodigy, and a clever Kunoichi."
However, Kakashi doesn't quite see how all three of these children fit into that description.
Paranoid. Mute. And Hyper. Are probably more accurate.
Everybody in the village knows Uzumaki Naruto as the Fox-Demon child. However, they also know him as the kid who jumps at the sight of his own shadow. The Freak of Konoha.
Naruto is a jumpy boy, nervous and jittery. Years of low mumbles and weird comments that make no sense have turned him into an incredibly superstitious person who believes in all things paranormal.
"I'm being haunted." Is something he says on a day-to-day basis.
His superstitions have lead people to believe he's crazy, and if they didn't already order their kids to stay away from him the parents of Konohagakure would definitely put up restrictions. Even Nara Shikamaru kept at a distance.
Naruto sits in the back corner of the classroom. Staring out the window and muttering nonsense under his breath. Iruka-sensei rarely bothers with him anymore - oh no, he doesn't ignore him, he's just given up on trying to bring the child out of his world of delusion - and most of his classmates keep a wide berth around him.
Two metres is the measured distance, they say.
He's been the cause of a lot of problems in their class and many students, and students parents, have come up to Iruka-sensei with complaints about the young child. But, what can he do? Sandaime Hokage-sama is adamant that Naruto remain under his tutelage - he claims it's healthier for him to be around children of his own age. So Iruka-sensei is forced to put his foot down and defend the child.
It isn't easy.
There is a day when Naruto is 6-years-old, sitting in the back of class drawing pictures of ugly foxes, and screaming lizards on his notebook. Yamanaka Ino walks into the classroom wearing a fresh new outfit that makes her look too old for her age, her hair - now much longer - tied up in a ponytail.
Everybody, girls and boys alike, stare as she saunters into the room, making whispered comments behind their hands as she shows off her pretty figure that can barely be called a figure.
When Naruto looks up to see what all the fuss is about he takes one look at Ino's outfit and screams.
He jumps out of his chair and practically tackles the little girl to the ground. His hands are all over her abdomen, pinching and pulling at the exposed skin of her tummy like a demented bird.
All through Ino's wails Naruto screams something that is lost in the sea of cries and shouts.
It's the loudest their class has ever been.
Iruka-sensei rushes into the class, horrified at what he sees in front of him and quickly pries the estranged boy off of the little girl and gapes when he sees blood spilling around on the floor. He calls for Suzume to look after Ino, and asks Mizuki to take over with the kids, then he rushes away from the Academy, Naruto still screaming and squirming under his arm.
When he bursts through the doors of the Hokage's office he deposits Naruto in front of the Village Leader and locks the doors. He reports what had just happened and shows Hokage-sama the blood on Naruto's hands, the bits of skin stuck under his stained fingernails and shouts when Naruto still tries to get away, snapping at his hands.
"Let me go! He's going to eat her!" He screams over and over again.
"Hokage-sama…" Iruka-sensei panics grabbing hold of Naruto's waist and keeping him at his side, despite the boy's constant struggles and strength, Iruka is still a Shinobi of Konohagakure, a Chunin, he was more experienced in handling hostile prisoners than he let on.
The Hokage stares at them, a pensive look in his eyes, and takes a long puff of the pipe in his mouth.
"Thank you, for bringing him to me, Iruka. I'll take it from here." He dismisses and takes the boy into his own arms, as Iruka bows and leaves the room the Hokage places the child on his lap and pets his hair.
Naruto stills instantly.
It calms him every time.
Sandaime Hokage pets his hair whenever he sees him. Ruffling the yellow spikes and laughing heartily when Naruto panics and tries to put them all back at the right angle. He's the only one who actually helps, so he visits the Old Man as often as possible, he's the safest, he says when people ask why he's bothering their beloved Hokage.
They don't understand him, but, honestly, who would?
"Naruto… Why did you do that to poor Ino-chan? You know you hurt her a lot, right?"
Naruto doesn't answer for a while, his mind still lost in the serenity of the Old Man's hand on his head, but when he does his voice is quiet, like a ghostly whisper. "I didn't want to hurt. I wanted to save her. He was going to eat her. I had to save her." He confesses.
Hiruzen stops and looks down at him, "Who was going to eat her, Naruto?"
"... Raijin."
After that day the Sandaime Hokage issued a new law. All products on Paranormal Activity and mentions of the supernatural were to be kept at an absolute minimum around Uzumaki Naruto. Which meant no mentioning of anything Mythical that could poison the little boy's mind, like the superstition that showing your belly button will cause the God, Raijin, to strike you down and eat you.
After that day, Ino wore bandages wrapped around her abdomen and ran away whenever she saw the monster who had scratched long red scars on her belly.
Luckily people took the issue very seriously after hearing what happened to little Ino-chan - who became known around the entire village because of the 'Fox-Demon's attack'.
Nobody dared to mention anything that could set off the child and turn him into a bloodthirsty monster.
Nobody dared mention anything to him at all.
Adults kept their silence and gave him whatever he needed, with only their angry glares to see him off - glares that he paid no attention to, so immersed in his own little world. Children ran away and didn't speak to him at all, too afraid that he may attack them next.
Sandaime Hokage charged Iruka-sensei to care for his mental health. However, he chose to do it didn't matter so long as Naruto didn't get any more twisted ideas and try to 'set things right' again. The Sandaime Hokage claimed himself too old to look after the child forever, he was setting things for the future, so that when he died Naruto would have someone he trusted to look after him.
He wouldn't dare leave the child out in the open for Danzo to manipulate.
At a loss, Iruka decided to give Naruto extra lessons, leaving him no opportunity to escape, and having no excuse and no reason to return home to his pristinely empty apartment Naruto stayed every day after school.
Iruka taught him new myths and legends, romanticising details and giving the boy books that would change his views on the supernatural. And being Naruto, he wanted to know everything there was to know about these 'new' ideas and theories, every story, every fairytale, he absorbed into his mind like a sponge.
(However, with his normal studies he was still absolutely horrible)
At the age of 8, Naruto came across two boys bullying a little girl in the snowy forest. Believing the girl to be the famous Yuki-Onna from Iruka-sensei's tale The Princess in the Snow he rushed forward to save her. The two boys were angry at the intrusion, but the second they saw who was interrupting their fun they ran for the hills.
The little 'Yuki-Onna' had never been so grateful in her life. Pale as the snow, with blue lips, and her own tears frozen on her cheeks, she looked up to see her saviour.
Her saviour.
Naruto, huffed eyes wild and wide when the boys ran away. Turning back to the Yuki-Onna he grinned. Looking at her he was a little confused, she was a lot smaller than what Iruka-sensei described her as, but her eyes were wide and white as a blizzard, her lips blue and her hair was the colour of the night sky. He was sure this was the mythical Yuki-Onna despite her size.
He quietly pulled her to her feet, brushing the snow off of her pretty kimono, and tilted his head to the side. Iruka-sensei said the Yuki-Onna was always cold, and that's why she was always wandering through the snow. So, maybe… if he gave her something warm she could go home… Back to her family and friends on the other side.
Oblivious, he pulled off his woolly red scarf and placed it on her shoulders, winding it around her neck and tossing the end so it fell over her head, he smiled.
Mission accomplished.
"There." He announced brightly, "Now you can go home."
She only blinked, her stutters muffled by the fabric as he pushed her towards the forest, through the thick snow, and hummed.
Naruto ran straight to Ichiraku's ramen house and recounted the entire encounter to a baffled Iruka-sensei who choked on his noodles as the boy told him about the 'little Yuki-Onna' he met in the woods.
Neither of them were aware that the lost Yuki-Onna was actually the Hyūga clan's heiress, Hinata, who, after that day, developed a crush on the boy whom everybody avoided.
When Naruto reached the age of 9-years, Uchiha Sasuke broke his nose.
It was in no way a mistake. Sasuke's left fist cranked back and slammed right into the tip of his nose.
Naruto had been talking about the Massacre of the Uchiha Clan. The reason Sasuke saw the need to break his nose; he said Sasuke was cursed. That obviously didn't sit well with the boy, right after Sasuke broke his nose Naruto screamed to the high heavens.
It was a sound they hadn't heard in years and the students of the Academy all ran to preserve their little lives. Ino ran straight home, her eyes welling with tears and clutching at her tummy.
Only Sasuke and Naruto were still there.
Words were thrown at the dark-haired boy. Crazed nonsense about curses and hauntings and maybe a few rude mentionings of the Devil, but, nobody really knew what was said between them. They only knew that after that day the two were never seen together again.
Naruto would shiver whenever Sasuke was around him and try to sneak as far away as possible, while Sasuke chose instead to ignore his existence entirely.
Every now and then Naruto could be seen glaring after the boy mumbling under his breath.
The Sandaime Hokage was greatly impressed with his progress. At 11-years-old the Uzumaki Naruto who screamed and jumped at the sight of his own shadow was still there, but he now seemed harmless, acting upon his urges to 'set things right' through verbal communication (even though he rarely succeeded).
It was that same year that Iruka-sensei told him about the Ninja who were killed in action. It wasn't a myth or a legend but true stories about men and women who had lost their lives in the field of battle.
He called them the Bōrei.
The ruined ones.
Their stories were the most tragic by far, and Naruto listened to each tale, captivated.
He learned that Iruka-sensei had lost his parents during an attack not too many years ago. That an evil demon had rampaged the village and slaughtered so many…
So many were lost to the monster.
"The people, those Shinobi died noble deaths. And every day… every day they wander the Earth trying to find their way back to the other side… But, it would have been better if they hadn't died at all…"
Lessons ended earlier that day and Naruto spent the remaining hours reading the Legend of the Shodai Hokage (a gift from the Old Man for going nine months without an incident) on the Yondaime Hokage's head. Thinking about what Iruka-sensei said he traced every word in the book, letting the story embrace him.
When he descended he told Iruka-sensei he wanted to be Hokage, so he could stop all the wars and no one would have to die anymore.
"There'll be no Bōrei wandering around because they would all go straight to the Pure Land."
Was what he told him, his expression resembling a sulky pup. His eyes, however, held a fire, one that said he would not allow anyone else to wander the planes, lost with no direction, because they had died for the sake of a village.
Iruka-sensei almost cried, whether out of horror or pride, no one knew for sure.
~xXx~
Author's Notes:
I was supposed to be writing a speech but I wrote this instead. Well, deadlines have never been my strong suit, I guess. I happen to like this chapter/story, so I decided to share it.
Read, comment and enjoy, or not, your choice.
Disclaimer: I own (claim) nothing. Just the story/plot, which I came up with in the early morning.