Twelve years ago, a nine tailed fox suddenly appeared. It's tails lashed out, smashing mountains and sending tidal waves crashing to the shore. The ninja rose up to defend their village. One shinobi faced the fox demon in mortal combat. He sacrifices his life to capture the beast and seal it into a human body.
A shiki fuin was place on the stomach of a newborn babe. She had blonde hair, blue eyes, and most peculiarly, whisker marks. No one knew it yet, but this girl- Naruko Uzumaki- would one day change the shinobi word as we know it.
"Nothing will ever change, Uzumaki Naruko." The first and only time she had ever talked to Danzō Shimura was enlightening, to say the least. Naruko was seven years old at the time, and had attended the Ninja Academy for two years. At the age of four, her life at the Orphanage had come to an abrupt halt. Read: Mrs. Shinshi had demanded she leave.
Living on the streets was difficult, primarily for two reasons. One, she needed a steady source of food. Two, to attain that food, she needed money. Money which she didn't have. Of course, everything had changed when she first met the old man, the Third Hokage. She was running from a small group of angry men.
This run in occurred after she turned five. Needing a steady source of income for food, she figured out a couple of solutions. The easiest way was to take food from the trash outside of the Akimichi restaurant, as it always had large quantities of uneaten food. The slightly more difficult solution was to beg in the streets, but she never really got any benefits from that. No one seemed to notice her. It was almost like she didn't exist, and when she did exist, not a single person wanted her to. The last way, the one that got her into trouble in the first place, was to take money from strangers. It was usually successful…well, it worked about fifty percent of the time. Naruko couldn't complain, knowing it was amazing she was successful at all. This particular incidence was a failure.
Her target was a tall, somewhat muscular man. He had black hair, and blue eyes. There was a scar on his lips, but he had a slight limp. If she got caught she could always run away faster. Her small hand reached up into his pant pocket where the lump that was his wallet rested. the thing was almost out of his pocket when his hand grabbed her wrist.
Naruko was scared, this man was stronger than the others. "I-I'm sorry, Mr…" She wrenched her hand back to her body, feeling bruises begin to form. "Please forgive me, you see-" Her sentenced faltered as his hand raised in anger, and she could feel his anger. The man's hand came down on her cheek hard, and it was then that she realized her 'target' was a shinobi. The force from the blow threw her small body on the ground. She crawled backwards as fast as she could before jumping up to run. She made it three steps before his hand grabbed her shoulder.
Using all the strength she could possibly gather, she yanked it back and continued to run. A few yen were in her hand from the near-theft. Three blocks away, Naruko sat down and put her back against a wall. Her breathing was heavy, and her limbs felt like led. But she had escaped, and that was what mattered. Hours latter, the battered blonde climbed to her feet. She already felt better than earlier.
She scampered back to her Alley, and was almost at the entrance when she bumped into an old man. He had strange white and red robes, and the pipe that had previously resided in his mouth clattered to the ground.
The old man ended up giving her a place to live and money for food. She owed her life to the Hokage, and for his help she would do anything for him. When she told him as much, he gave her one task: go to the Academy. But life at the Academy was even worse than living on the streets. At first, it was great. She made friends with two boys, Kaito and Sachi. The class was running around the building, and there was one boy who was being made fun of. Rock Lee. He had strange looking eyes and big eyebrows. But that wasn't what he was being made fun of.
The group of children jogged around the perimeter. Rock Lee was jogging with everybody else, and the boy next to him was poking fun. "Give up already!" The civilian boy had spiky blue hair and a white shirt. Lee continued to look forwards, eyes furrowed. "You're so weird, Lee! Your name, your face, even your clothes are weird!" Several boys snickered. "Give up, you can't do it!"
Lee's eyes narrowed, "I can." Naruko shook her head and continued to run. She couldn't change what was happening. She couldn't hear what the boy said after that, but Lee shook his head, and his braid shook wildly. She knew what came next. The boy, Sho, leaned over to Lee like he was sharing a secret.
"You know what what you're called around here?" The group of boys stopped running, and all began to chant, "Hot-blooded, hot-blooded, hot-blooded dead-last!" Lee covered his ears and ran away yelling. The boys stopped shouting in shock, and their instructor could only shout at the dead last to come back.
Rock Lee had a lot of chakra, more than all of those who made fun of him combined...but he could not use it. He never would, and only she knew that. Naruko could sense chakra, and though the boy tried his hardest, the chakra never left his body. The Instructors didn't know, or maybe they just didn't care, but each test included Ninjutsu units, and he would not pass.
Naruko was nearly the dead-last, but as she could use her chakra, her fate was spared. Still, the Instructors hated her, and no one else. She would not be surprised if they rigged the tests so that she couldn't pass. She wasn't the smartest, not by a long shot. But the tests she got had information that hadn't even been taught yet. 'At least I try...but that poor Lee. He tries harder than anyone but- no, Naruko. He'll push you away too.'
This wasn't the first time the boy called Rock Lee had been ridiculed. All of her peers were older than her, as she was an early applicant. Her only friends were Kaito and Sachi. Then they left her. When their parents had arrived to the Academy one day and saw the three of them, she felt the same hate from the other villagers. While she held hope that they would come back the next day and ask her why she was so sad, it was useless. They walked right past her like the blonde didn't exist.
Naruko, age five, sat on the only swing the Academy had. Sachi and Kaito were about to arrive, and then they could be friends, like usual. The two boys on her mind walked up towards her, and she raised her hand as a hello. But...they walked right past her. The crushing pain that came with heartbreak fell on her all at once. She walked into the classroom with slumped shoulder that day. It took a week for her to realize they would never talk to her again.
It was Ninjutsu training day, and a half hour through the boy called Rock Lee shot by her. He ran straight to the tree she usually sat under, and laid face down on the ground. 'He's crying,' she realized. Sachi chuckled and called out to the exhausted dead-last, "Hey Lee, are you taking a break already?!" She stood up angrily, glaring at her old friend.
"Hey, stop talking about him like that! You're just a spoiled brat who does whatever someone else tells you to, and abandons peop-" Her hands covered her mouth in shame, and she ran away from the group. No one called out for her.
A tall man, a jonin, with a bowl hair cut appeared that day, and trained him. Lee's taijutsu scores skyrocketed, as well as his attitude about life, and he was no longer the dead-last. She was. At the end of the year, everyone graduated except for her, because she could not produce a Bunshin. Her second round of the Academy would begin.
This time, she was made fun of. "Dead-last!" "Mama says you're a demon brat!" "Weak!" "You'll never graduate!" "You know what they call you around here? A weak dropout!" The old man, the Hokage, had assured her she was strong. But then, why didn't she believe him?
"Ah. Naruko-chan. Kids will always do this to someone...if it isn't you it's someone else." Smoke gathered in the air as he exhaled from his pipe. "You're seven, Naruko-chan. Things will get better. But for now, remember this. I was not always the strongest, and I too was ridiculed. But you can change that, you can become strong. Look at me, I'm the Hokage! Often called the strongest in the village...but I disagree." His eyes narrowed, "Strength isn't everything, Naruko-chan...but if you attain it, you can use that strength for good. Do you understand?" She nodded eagerly.
That was the day she first proclaimed her goal of attaining the position of Hokage. That way, she would be strong enough, and she would never be ridiculed again. People would respect her. They'd...they'd see her for once. She wouldn't be hated. She failed that graduation as well. No one believed her. The villagers continued to ignore her. Some were worse than others, going as far as denying her service.
Some people were okay though. The Hokage had given her an ANBU agent to protect her, after the second assassination attempt. He didn't have a real name, and he had a black mask. He had funky white hair too. He gave her a special night cap, and every night she felt alone in her apartment she wore it to feel better. It looked like it was going to eat her head, and she loved it. He also gave her a toad wallet.
One day, as she was waling down the street, she saw a shop that sold masks. One was a white and red dog mask that reminded her of him, and she wanted to give it to her special protector.
The man running the mask stall had a mustache and goatee. The owner shoved her out of the stall just as she had touched the mask. "Got it? Don't you dare show up again!" Her eyes were wet with tears and her face clearly spelled out confusion. He threw the mask she chose at her, "This one, huh?!" It hit her head as she fell to the ground. It clattered across the dirt as he continued, "I'll give it to you, now get lost!"
She sat up, "What's the matter with you all of a sudden?!" A crowd surrounded her. Tears ran down her cheeks, but she slowly got angry. He glared down at Naruko. "Why are you so mean to me?!"
"Why did you come here?!" He yelled back, not expecting a reply.
"Why did I come here?" She slumped, anger leaving her suddenly. "I just wanted to look at that mask...give it to the one person who has alway been there for me." She felt two small chakra signature approach, ones she had felt around the Academy before. People were crowded around her, looking torn between hatred and compassion. "What the hell is it?!" She looked down, "Why do you look at me like that?" She choked down a sob. She sprinted off, pig tails swinging behind her, but not before grabbing the mask.
Her ANBU wore it as his mask from then on, and had a code-name 'Inu'.
Then she failed her second round of the Academy, and began the third. The chakra signatures from that day were in her class, belonging to Shikamaru Nara and Choji Akimichi. They continued to send weird looks in her direction, but never approached her. Naruko also had a new sensei, Iruka. He wasn't as obvious with his distaste of her as the others were, but she could feel it.
She could feel the hatred follow her wherever she went, except around her classmates. The Academy became her new safe haven...but no one knew her. No one acknowledged her unless she did something wrong. If that was how her life would always be, she would get in trouble. She needed to be acknowledged to become strong, like the Hokage.
That was the day she began 'pranking', which was more like vandalism. It started small, writing rude comments in all of the textbooks, assaulting her teacher, or making convenient mistakes during training that caused a chain reaction. Then it developed to something more dangerous.
She giggled nervously as Iruka found her. She had skipped class in order to write slander in red paint on the wall of a store that refused her service. It had a crude drawing of the man who yelled at her reading porn. Said man gripped her shoulder tightly as she threw a sour look at her sensei. "Naruko, you can't keep doing this. I'm very disappointed in y-"
"Shut up!" She ran away as fast as she could. That man could never understand her. Iruka spun around, calling for her to come back. She didn't care, so she didn't listen.
She tried to befriend two girls in her kunoichi class, Sakura and Ino, during flower picking. After the Academy ended for the day, she walked up to the two, trying to find a way to stay friends.
Sakura's mother stormed over to the trio, dragging the pink haired girl away. "I thought I told you not to play with that girl!" Ino had walked away then, sad look on her face. One by one, parents showed up, and Naruko stood by herself. No one was coming for her. The boy, Sasuke, grabbed onto his mother's hand. The smile that had adorned her face slowly fell. Shikamaru and Choji left with the Nara's father.
Shikamaru tugged at his hand, "Dad, let go of my hand!" The man leaned over with a lazy smile.
"Why, does it embarrass you?" Her smile left completely, teeth clenched in anger. At least he had a father to embarrass him. Iruka walked past, sparing a glance in her direction, before walking away. As she looked at the ground, a single drop of liquid hit the surface. What was it? Rain? A second fell in the same place. She rubbed her eyes tiredly, and the same liquid smeared on her hand. It was tears.
Naruko stopped trying to make friends.
Eventually she grew too big for her old clothes, so the Hokage gave her an orange hoodie and dark blue shinobi sweat pants. So she looked the part, or something.
She was age seven when she met Danzō Shimura, and even five years later, his words still gave her chills. "Nothing will ever change, Uzumaki Naruko."
She was headed home by herself again, after another lonely day at the Academy. A hand gripped her shoulder, halting her progress. She looked up to see an old man with bandages covering his right eye and his forehead. "My name is Danzō Shimura. Please, follow me." They sat down at a table in the park. After what felt like an eternity, he looked up at her, face grim, "Nothing will ever change, Uzumaki Naruko." She glared at him, about to retort, when he held up a hand. "No matter how you prove yourself, no one will treat you differently. Everyone hates you now, and everyone will hate you tomorrow, and the next day." His eye seemed to un-focus for a second, "I can help you become strong i-"
She stood up abruptly, "You're lying! two people don't hate me! I can become strong on my own, and I don't need anybody, especially not you, dattebane!"
She never saw him again.