Chapter 1: Meeting Alex

Even at the tender age of seven years old when life is just beginning, Naruto Namikaze was forced to mature faster than anyone else his age. The reason why? Seven years ago on the night of his and his twin sister, Hitomi, birth a man wearing an orange and black masked attacked. After their mother Kushina Namikaze had given birth to them, the man had kidnapped her and using some sort of ninjutsu he forcefully extracted the Kyuubi no Yoko from her. Then using the power of the Sharingan that he held he controlled the beast and used it to attack his home, Konohagakure no Sato.

That night the fox caused nothing, but death and destruction. However, his father, the Yondaime Hokage Minato Namikaze, use a powerful sealing jutsu. He used the power to separate the Kyuubi's yang chakra from it and sealed it into his newborn daughter, Hitomi. As for the Yin chakra, he sealed it back into Kushina who would have died due to the forceful removal of the Kyuubi. In the end Kushina survived.

Once all that was over, Minato told the village that someone powerful summoned the Kyuubi to destroy the village. But he had defeated the beast and sealed it into his daughter who would use the power to protect the village. The people who loved Minato trusted his judgment and accepted Hitomi as the savior of their village and treated her like a hero.

Naruto was soon forgotten on their birthdays even though they shared the same one. On Christmas was the same thing, during the family parties, family dinners, family vacations…not once did they remember him. He was left at home alone. Sometimes when his parents were so attentive of Hitomi they would forget about his food. And when they did notice him, they would only nod their heads as if he wasn't of any importance.

On their fourth birthday, Naruto was forgotten again. That was three years ago. Today he would go and ask his parents if he could train with them and Hitomi like they had been doing for months. They told him to stop being a pest. Apparently he would only hold Hitomi back. In the village things were no different, since the villagers would ask if the Hokage had a son, they would only laugh and tell him to go away, saying to stop lying.

On October tenth the day of his sixth birthday, Naruto walked out of his room and went out to see that his parents were getting the gear ready for Hitomi's training. He went to ask if he could train with them today, but when he got close he heard them only talking about Hitomi and how happy she would be, they mentioned anything about him.

The days seemed to go the same way they went by every day the same way as they always did. Right now a seven year old Naruto watched his parents teach his younger sister Hitomi their fighting styles with a scroll of Jutsu on the side for later. He was hoping that today would be the day that they would finally be that day that they would finally train him he hoped for that every day as long as he could remember that wall he ever wanted their acknowledgement, their approval, their acceptance. Every time Naruto went up and asked his parents they would just tell him to leave them alone and continue to focus on Hitomi's training, since they believed that she needed it more since she had the Kyuubi sealed into her six years ago on the day of her birth.

Even his own godparents, Jiraiya and Tsunade, in their eyes he wasn't worth their time.

After being rejected the last time Naruto took it upon himself to get stronger, so he began reading book on chakra control and learn all he could. He thought that if he learned some things on his own his parents would train him just like his sister.

As Naruto left his family's compound he headed straight to one of the training fields that were open for any shinobi or shinobi in training to use. Arriving at the field he opened up the scroll that he had taken from his father's library, it was on intermediate chakra control, reading the first line he saw that it was on tree walking.

Tree Climbing: in this exercise, the user gathers chakra at the bottom of their feet, second the shinobi must begin walking up a tree as if it were the ground. However, if the user gathers too much chakra, the tree will break and send you flying in the opposite direction, gather too little chakra and you will not stick and will fall. The user must gather the correct amount of chakra to stick to the tree trunk, however, this is just the beginning and the easiest part, the user must then be able to sustain the ability to remain on the tree for minutes to up to hours.

As soon as he finished reading the instructions he placed the scroll down and walked over to the tree and began to gather chakra at the bottom of is feet. When he thought that he had enough he place his right foot on the tree and then the left, so far he was able to stick meaning he gather the right amount, but, just as he started he finished when he took the next step. Naruto felt his chakra slip and he fell back to the ground.

"Fuck, I thought I had it, I guess that this isn't as easy as I thought it would be," Naruto said, "Well, no pain no gain."

With that he went back to practice his tree climbing hoping that it would impress his father and mother. Since he was so busy training he failed to notice that he was being watched, a few yards away from where the young blond was at, a rather unique man who seemed to be in his early to mid twenties that seemed to be studying him. His head was covered up by a grey hood but if you got close enough you could see that he had hazel eyes and black curly hair, he was wearing a white under a grey hoodie and on top of that a leather jacket with a red design on the back. He was Alex Mercer, he had studied the blonde since he first saw him he had a sense of familiarity.

The kid reminded him of himself and his past, Alex was forced to grow up fast for Dana and his own sake, while this kid was also forced to grow up fast himself. His own parents ignored him in favor of his sister and neglected him, the kid didn't have it as bad as him when he was still human but what is worse is getting beaten by a person who is supposed to love you or being forgotten by the people who are supposed to remember you. They might not have hit him but he had a feeling that the kid would leave the village soon enough.

The more he watched the kid the more interested in him he became he couldn't help but be reminded of himself . So for the rest of the morning Alex watched how Naruto kept on training to get the tree climbing exercise down. It was around two in the afternoon when the blond could finally stay on the tree for a sufficient amount of time, now it was time to go and show his parents what he could do. This was sure to impress them to a certain extent that they would have to train him now. The black light being followed the boy to see the reaction of his father and mother when they saw what he could do now.

Ten minutes later Naruto entered his father's compound and went straight to the back yard hoping that his father was still teaching Hitomi. To his luck he was still there along with his mother Kushina and his sister, all three were currently eating ramen that was probably from that shack Ichiraku's. Seriously what did they see in that crap it had crap loads of sodium and couldn't too good for one's health. Naruto was not here to think about the bad things that ramen had, he was here to show them his new trick.

"Dad, Mom," Naruto called out as he approached them.

The two of them turned to see their son walking toward them; inwardly they rolled their eyes knowing what he would want.

"What is it?" asked Minato as he put his bowl of ramen down.

"I was wondering if I could show you guys something?" asked Naruto.

"Show us something? Fine go ahead and show us," the older blond said.

Naruto hearing this smiled and ran over to the closest tree and without using hand signs anymore he ran up the tree using only his chakra, hanging for a few seconds he jumped back down. He had a smile on his face as he looked up at his parents and sister; he noticed many different emotions, but mostly anger. His sister had dropped her bowl of ramen and her face was as red as her hair, she couldn't believe what she had seen, her no good brother had learn something she hadn't yet. But, no, that wasn't what infuriated her the most, he hadn't even told her. Kushina gritted her teeth at the display her son had done and was about to move to berate him, Minato however mover faster.

"So what do you think?" the small blonde asked.

The answer came in the form of a thunderous slap across his face that sent him flying into the tree he had run up.

"You stupid little bastard, what the hell are you thinking pulling such a stunt?" Minato yelled at his only son, "who taught the tree climbing technique!"

"I t-took a-a s-s-scr-scroll f-from y-your s-study," Naruto stuttered.

"you worthless piece of scum, how dare you take something without permission," this time it was Kushina who said this, "we give you everything that you need, a roof to sleep under, the clothes on your back, and we feed you, and this is how you repay us, we fucking told you that you would start your training when the academy begins, but no you go and steal from us just to try and get us to train you. We're training your sister so she can harness the power of the Kyuubi so it won't be a threat to her when she's older but you on the other hand don't need the training. NOW GO TO YOUR FUCKING ROOM AND STAY THERE!"

Tears had began to fall from his eyes, he had never been screamed at like that, his parent's hated him there was nothing more to it, and his eyes then fell on his sister who was coming in his direction.

"NARUTO YOU IDIOT!" she yelled at him and ended it with a slap that made his face hit the dirt.

"You heard your mother, get up and go to your room and you're not getting any dinner," Minato said harshly, "GO!"

Naruto scrambled to get up and run but not before screaming at his family, "I HATE YOU ALL." With that Naruto ran into the house and headed straight for his room, his family stood stunned at the last thing they were told. They felt a slight pang of pain in their chest for some reason.

Alex was speechless from his hiding spot, how could parent be so cruel to their children, then again maybe it was time to put his plan into action. He vanished into the shadows to wait for the right moment to strike.

Later that night after dinner had ended; Minato and Kushina were in their bedroom thinking about what had transpired today.

"You know, I think that we went a little too far with the way we treated Naruto," Kushina said as she put on her night gown.

"Yeah, maybe I shouldn't have hit him but, I just felt so irked that he went behind our back and learned how to access his chakra without telling us," Minato said as he laid on the bed, "he could have gotten hurt yet I think we hurt him more."

"Yeah, I think it's our fault too, I mean he's been asking us to train him along with Hitomi, yet we ignored him," Kushina said joining her husband on the bed, "maybe we should help him a little, I mean let's at least teach him the basic and some low level ninjutsu and some taijutsu."

"I guess we should, I'll have a shadow clone start teaching him tomorrow," Minato said as he turned to look at the red hair woman, "hopefully he will forgive us, no, I'm sure he'll forgive us if I teach him my Rasengan."

"Yes, I'm sure he will honey, now let's go to sleep," his wife said as she closed her eyes.

With Hitomi

Hitomi was sitting in her reading a book that her godfather had given her a year ago. But, for some reason she just couldn't concentrate on it. Her mind kept going back to her brother, why would he go and learn something and not tell her. I mean they're siblings they should not have secrets between each other. That was it she would go and apologize for her behavior and maybe show him a thing or two that her parents were teaching her. She stood up from her bed and walked over to her brother's room, she stopped outside the door and a thought ran through her head, she had never been in Naruto's room before.

So she knocked on the door to finally see how her brother's room was decorated. When no answer came she wondered if he was asleep or maybe he was just mad, yeah that was it, he was mad. But, she was not about to give up so she grabbed the door knob and to her surprised it was unlocked. Turning the knob she pushed the door opening the room and walked in.

Her small violet eyes widen at the sight. The room was empty, empty of life, the walls were white with no posters or pictures like the ones she has in her room. The bed was well made; in fact the only thing she could see in the room was the bed, a dresser, a desk, and the closet in the corner of the room. Also her brother was nowhere to be found.

She was about to call her parents when she saw a white envelope on the desk. Maybe, that would say were her brother went. She made her way to the desk and grabbed the letter, opening if she pulled out the folded piece of paper. When she began to read the only thing she could say was nothing instead she let out a loud scream.

With Minato and Kushina

When Kushina closed her eyes hoping to get a good night's sleep, she was forced awake when she felt the alarm seals in the compound go off. Both she and Minato bolted out of their bed and ran to see what it was, the seals went off in Naruto's room, before they could do anything, an ear splitting scream came from inside the house. Running back inside Kushina went to find her daughter whom she was sure had been the one who scream, closely behind her. When they arrived they saw Hitomi's room empty, but heard sobbing coming from another room, closing in they saw the door to Naruto's room opened with the light on.

Kushina went inside and was stunned at how bare it was in there, there were only the white walls, the floor was clean, but it was devoid of life, something that shouldn't be for seen in a five year old room. She saw Hitomi on the floor crying while gripping what seemed to be a note, instantly she felt a horrible sense of dread. Slowly she approached her daughter and kneeled next to her bringing her into her embrace.

"Hitomi, what happened?" she asked softly.

"Onii-chan, I came to say sorry, but he's not here, he's…gone," Hitomi told her mother as she cried even harder. At this moment Minato and the others arrived and were speechless at the sight of the lifeless room.

"Kushina," he spoke.

Kushina didn't answer him, instead she took the paper that Hitomi was clutching and began to read it out loud.

Today I finally understood how you all feel about me; I'm nothing but a burden to all of you so I took the decision to leave. Now you can be the family you wanted to be, without someone to burden you. And be nothing but a annoyance in your life, goodbye Minato Namikaze, and Kushina Namikaze hope you enjoy the rest of your life with your favorite daughter.

-Naruto

The note was short, but it still explained how he felt; now the Hokage and his family had lost their only son because of their discrimination.

Earlier that night with Naruto

Naruto sat on his bed tears streaming down his face; he still couldn't believe what his father had done to him. Sure he went and took a scroll to learn from however, that was no reason to hit him that hard, all this came to hit with a simple answer, all his parents cared for was Hitomi. Yeah that was right they hated him because of that Kyuubi brat Hitomi, this wasn't his family no, these people hated him. Standing up from his bed he took the decision to leave this godforsaken place, he would travel around the world and he would become the most powerful shinobi to ever live.

Going to this small closet he opened the door and pulled out a small backpack which he tossed onto the bed. The next thing he did was pull out a small scroll from under his bed, Naruto opened the scroll and began to draw some characters onto it creating a sealing scroll. Smiling with his work, the small blond began to take out the few clothes that he own which weren't much since his parent quit buying him things at the age of four. Since then he began doing chores for the one person who cared for him, it was thanks to her that he managed to get some clothes that would fit him. Now that he thought about it he might as well leave her a letter explaining what happened and why he was leaving.

As he placed the last item of clothing on top of the scroll he made a single hand sign and with a 'fuin' he sealed everything into the scroll. He really had to thank Itachi one day for teaching him basic sealing. Making sure that there was no one out of there room he walked over to his room's window and placed seals on the alarm seals that would slow down the activation letting them know that he left, he opened it, taking one last glance at the room tears swell up in his eyes again, then he jumped down and began running toward the gate. He knew that the security seals around the house would soon turn on and he had to get away before that happens.

The blond made it to the streets of the village without setting off any alarms, tears were streaming down his face by now, but there was no turning back now. Going left, he ran down the streets he needed to find a way out of the village soon, if he was found out he would be grounded even worse. Turning a corner without looking ahead was a mistake as he ended up crashing into someone, looking up he saw a person that he had never seen.

"Sorry," Naruto apologized.

"Judging from that bag you have their kid I'd say that you are going on a trip or running away. My money is on the larder," the man said.

Naruto instantly became alert and was worried he would take him back to the Hokage's house until he heard. "Relax kid I'm not going to tell on you in fact how would you like to come with me I'm a traveler of sorts just looking seeing where to go then I saw and you reminded me of myself not just through the parents but also in how you act. I could train you teach you everything I know in how to fight and jutsu all you got to do is agree to come with me."

Naruto thought it over he would be able to leave, he would have a teacher, someone that cared about him, and possibly become a ninja somewhere else possibly Kiri or Kumo Iwa was out of the question they would kill him on sight and celebrate about it. Naruto though it over and said, "alright I accept, names Naruto what's yours."

"Alex, Alex Mercer," the two then left heading towards the border to leave Konoha and then the border. By the time the seals to let his parents know that he left went off, the two were already half across fire country. And the beginning of Naruto's new life.