I don't own Naruto, those rights are for Kishimoto

The Eye of the Maelstrom: Recognition

Naruto Uzumaki always thought of himself as a good child. Sure, there were the times where he played harmless pranks on the citizens of Konoha, but other than that, he was a good child who had no knowledge as to why this was happening to him.

Naruto found himself laying on the floor breathing heavily, and wincing from the pain he felt in his arm and legs. He had just escaped from a mob of villagers who had chased after him while he was scrounging through the trash for something to munch on.

They had surprised him while he was preoccupied, grabbing his hair and arms so he couldn't get away. He was surprised greatly since he didn't hear anyone at this time at night, let alone see anyone. He always tried to find food just after the sun went down, and he could sneak around better, faster, and much quieter when there were always less people and shinobi walking around the streets at night.

He could hear shouts of "Demon!" and "Monster!" in the cries of the villagers who were attacking him. He felt an immense explosion of warmth and pain when he received a very strong punch to his back, just next to his spinal cord. He cried out in pain and started to thrash around to see if there was anyway to get free so he could run and hide away from his attackers.

One of the villagers, who was holding him, found their hand a bit to close to Naruto's mouth. Naruto saw an opportunity in this, as he felt this man's hand on his left shoulder, and quickly took advantage of this. He bit down hard, like a vice grip, between the mans thumb and index finger and tasted a warm metallic liquid in his mouth. Realizing it was blood, he spit it out quickly due to its bitter and disgusting taste, in his opinion, and heard the man screaming bloody murder right next to him.

"AARRGH!"

"The little demon just fucking bit me!"

"Kill him!"

The man released Naruto's shoulder to nurse the wound he had just received from the blonde child.

Naruto now had one free arm and made use of yet another helpful opportunity. He twisted his body slightly to the left to try and find something he could pick up off the dirty alleyway. Frantically moving his one free hand around, he had spotted a rock, and picked it up a quick as possible to try to save himself.

Looking around at all the commotion from the people around him, he spotted one of the men holding his leg and threw the rock as hard as he could with what little strength he had in his small body.

Luckily, the rock found its way and hit the man right in the eye. He let go of Naruto as to assess the damage done to his eye, which noteably, was in excruciating pain from the small rock. Naruto took this moment to use his now free right leg to kick the other villager in the jaw so he could finally free himself completely.

Hitting the other villager, Naruto found himself dropped to the ground with a thud, rolling over quickly, and standing up; His eyes darting around looking for an exit. He made the only escape that was visible at the moment and ran past the man with the injured eye. Turning and ducking around other villagers, he quickly found his way out of the small mob of people, and ran as fast as his legs would carry him down the side streets and back alleys of Konoha.

Stopping for a moment to catch his breath, after running for what must have been half an hour, Naruto found himself in a section of Konoha that was dirty and had a nasty atmosphere. This peculiar environment was not like most of the more popular sections that were more upbeat and lined with street vendors.

Thinking to himself, "This can't be a very good place to be, but it's better then getting beat up for no reason."

He decided to run down this street hoping to lose the mob that he could hear in the background shouting obscene things towards his direction. Walking forward with his head turned to the side to keep an eye out for villagers that might want to assist in his beating, he found himself running into a door that had just opened right in front of his path.

Stumbling backwards and falling onto his butt, he looked upwards ready to shout at the metal door that had knocked him over. He then had the misfortune of making eye contact with someone who looked quite angry.

This mysterious person had just came out of some hole in the wall bar after drinking away the pain he felt after losing his wife and child 10 years earlier. Thinking to himself about the Kyuubi attack made his blood boil. He had been out of the village on a mission after just being promoted to Chunin during the time of the attack. He had tried get time off from his commanding officer since his wife had just given birth to a beautiful baby boy. Sadly he was forced to go and patrol the border for two weeks.

Looking down after feeling the door resist opening fully, he made eye contact with a blonde haired and blue eyed child. He would recognize this face anywhere, it was the demon who took away his family and all that he cared for in this miserable world.

"You little fucking prick!," the man yelled."You took my family away from me while I was out of the village! I'm going to fucking kill you and be praised as a hero of the village, now stay still while I gut you with my fucking knife!"

"I-I don't know what you're talking about mister, I'm just a kid! Not a demon!" Naruto tried to say.

"STOP WITH THE LIES DEMON, EVERYONE KNOWS WHAT YOU ARE!" The man screamed.

The man quickly dashed over to Naruto, who was still laying on the ground, and pulled out a Kunai. Aiming straight at Naruto, the man stepped forward, and stabbed Naruto right in the upper left arm.

Naruto cried out in pain with watery eyes; He felt his arm blow up in pain and could see the blood out of the corner of his eye.

The man twisted the Kunai around in Naruto's arm with a disgusting smile on his face, feeling relieved that he was about to end the life of the demon child who took away his family. That was soon stopped by a Shuriken that had found its way to the back of the man's head.

With a dull thump, the man fell over beside Naruto, dead. Naruto heard someone land on the ground next to him. Looking up through watery eyes, he saw someone in an Anbu outfit with eyes that glowed in the darkness. They were red and had 3 comma's around the pupil. This man was average height, around 5'6 – 5'7 and had jet black hair. He talked with a monotone voice that Naruto heard a lot of shinobi speak with.

"Are you alright, Uzumaki?"

"W-W-Who are you mister?," Naruto said without trying to cry from the pain in his arm.

"It matters not who I am, but what matters is that you should be more careful with who you run into during the night. Someone might not be around to save you next time."

"T-thank you mister, who are you? Did Hokage-jiji send you?"

"I am no one, Uzumaki, and no Hokage-Sama didn't send me."

He walked over to Naruto and placed his hand onto his shoulder and then shushined himself and Naruto outside of a run-down looking building.

"Here is your house, stay inside until morning and then go talk to Hokage-Sama about this night."

"O-okay thank you mister, will I see you again?"

"Not anytime soon, Uzumaki. If we do meet again, I hope you are a strong young man."

Naruto didn't know why the man would say that. Did he want to fight him also? Who knew?

The man then turned around and shushined away.

Naruto ran up the stairs in the building to the top floor where his apartment was. Making his way inside, he turned on a lamp he had found in the garbage a few months back. Looking at his wound, he saw that the blood was already starting to dry up. He found an old shirt that had some blood stains on it, and carefully wrapped it around his shoulder, hoping that it would help with the wound.

He laid down on the floor and noticed he was holding in a breath and released it. Panting a bit, he decided to lay there for the night hoping that no one would find him and he could get to the Hokage tomorrow morning and retell what had gone on that night.