A/N: I've had this idea for a while now, and it was inspired by sci-fi games such as Mass Effect and Halo. Hopefully, someone gets the idea of what I'm trying to convey as Naruto's bloodline. I'll establish limits and powers, probably later...but that all depends on how many reviews I get for this story. As usual, your reviews will determine if this story is worth pursuing, so do read and review would you kindly?

{Play: "Twisted Streets" by Darren Korb from "Bastion"}

[Unknown location...]

As soon as he woke up, he didn't know what was going on. That Hebi-teme's last attack seemed to have rattled his brains a bit, and now he was in the middle of some kind of dream. Where the hell was he? The entire place looked like he was in a sewer of some kind. How the hell did he go from the tower in the Shi no Mori to this place? Was he dead or something?

However, all thoughts were thrown out the window the second that he heard something behind him. What the hell was going on? The sound got louder and louder, as it got faster. It sounded like...water. And then, as soon as Naruto realized what was happening, it was too late! The flood had hit him hard and fast, smashing him against the wall behind him.

Something felt odd now. He knew there was water in his whole body, so why wasn't he drowning? And then Naruto felt it! A single jolt to his head had caused pain, and for some reason he began to feel like he knew more than he did; he actually felt a lot smarter. He also began see visions. No, it wouldn't be accurate to call what he was seeing visions; they were more like...memories.

For his first trip down memory lane, he was brought back to the time he'd spent in the orphanage; he remembered being really smart for his age, as well as laughing the days away with a cute girl that had buns in her hair. He remembered that as they grew up, she would cuddle him in the bed they shared together, and that the matron for the first few years of his life was a woman as pretty on the outside as she was inside that really loved children and smelled like soap. He also remembered the excitement he felt the days that she would gather the orphans together, reading stories to them about Momotaro, the Brave One-Inch samurai, even the one about the Aka-oni and Ao-oni. The one he liked the most however seemed to be the one about Benkei and his duel with Ushiwakamaru on Gojoe bridge.

Unfortunately, that matron died at the young age of 32, and the replacement that came in was not exactly pleasant. She would throw him in a closet without saying why, often giving him rotten food and calling him 'demon', and blaming him for causing all the orphans to lose their parents. Being a kid at the time, he did not understand why everyone kept calling him demon when they thought he wasn't listening. Thanks to Mizuki (assuming he didn't survive the beat-down that Naruto lay on him, may his soul forever burn in hell), Naruto now knew why.

However, what the bad matron didn't seem to know was that this also had the effect of drawing him closer to the bun-haired girl he now remembered was Tenten. Where was she? The growing relationship between Tenten and Naruto had gotten so good that it was able to get rid of all the pain he felt...he was actually happiest whenever he would get close to Tenten and the two of them would cuddle, as she stroked his hair and told him that things would get better later on. It never did get better, but that didn't matter so long as he was able to stay with Tenten.

Somehow, the bad matron found out about Naruto's relationship with Tenten, and things seemed to get even worse from there. One day, Naruto felt a cloth cover his mouth that put him to sleep...and next thing he knew, he awoke in a closet, watching as Tenten was being adopted by a funny-looking guy in a wide-sleeved jacket that wore a pair of large glasses with spirals on the lenses. She seemed to be looking around for something before she left, but no matter how hard he struggled, she did not seem to hear him. She was led away by the weird guy, with a sad look on her face. After she was long gone, Naruto knew that it was hopeless to keep struggling. His best friend of six years was now no longer with him, and the matron had a ball with taunting him.

The day he turned seven, he was dragged out of bed at the dead of midnight, thrown out headfirst into the street, and locked outside the orphanage. That was sort of a good thing, as he never liked the matron anyway, but he still needed to be safe. And so, he used what he learned the hard way from the orphanage to survive out in the streets: whenever night was coming up, he would find a box, and newspapers, and use them to make an improvised sleeping bag and blanket; he would make regular trips to the river to clean himself up every day and get a drink of water before sneaking into the farmer's market, and swiping food from under the vendors' noses (he really liked those apples, and especially relished in the victory of successfully robbing them); he never stayed in one place, because while the glares were bad, he knew that only a few people were likely to go beyond the glaring to do what the matron had been doing to him, and he was not going to take that chance even if the people looked nice; once in a while he even snuck into the Akimichi clan restaurant looking for unbitten scraps that had not gotten into the trash cans yet, moving in, taking what he needed, and then getting the fuck out before anyone saw him.

In those days, Naruto had been hearing the word 'street rat' being uttered. While he wasn't sure who they were talking about, that didn't stop him; he may not have liked stealing, but he needed to survive, morals be damned.

He then remembered the day that his life started changing for the better; it'd been almost four, maybe six months since he'd been booted out of the orphanage, and Naruto was getting hungry. He only had a few apples left from his recent burglary, and he'd established his temporary sleeping quarters far away from the Akimichi restaurant...but he was fairly close to the Inuzuka compound. He'd heard that dog food was okay to eat, and so he rationed his apples for a bit, taking a look from a distance, watching as the women in the compound walked around to feed the dogs in the kennels, trying to figure out where they stored the food, as well as a good time to strike. Unfortunately, he was on his last apple at the time, and so he had to strike immediately!

Naruto waited until nightfall to make his move. He climbed over the chain link fence as quickly and quietly as he could, and then landing just as quietly-this was too easy. He knew that the food was stored in a particular shed, and so he ran and cursed his luck! They padlocked the damn thing! But he'd come way too far to leave the compound empty-handed!

He looked around, and found a planter...and it was being held back with large rocks. Naruto picked up the largest rock he could find, and started banging desperately at the lock, when the unthinkable happened: a large pool of light had turned on from behind him. He'd been caught! The older Inuzuka woman he'd seen walking around seemed to have a shocked look on her face.

Wasting no time, Naruto darted off and tried to escape, ignoring the woman's cries for him to wait. He was halfway up the fence when he felt arms wrapping around him and then pulling him down quickly. As he was being restrained by the Inuzuka woman, Naruto struggled hard to get free, ignoring her pleas for him to stay and that he was safe...when it was clear that resistance was futile, he relaxed while she stroked his hair lovingly, lowering the fear he had that she was one of the people that'd tried to kill him.

The next few days, he stayed with the Inuzuka clan telling the matriarch of what he'd been through. Then one day, he'd heard from the Hokage that he'd done a lot of things recently: the matron and the people that tried to kill him several times while he was on the move were thrown in jail, all of whom were fined for every cent they had to their names and the proceeds going towards compensating Naruto for what he had to go through. After that, Naruto was given an apartment, a monthly stipend, a lot of free coupons to the Ichiraku Ramen, as well as a very sincere apology from the Hokage for being too busy to see him, and not doing more for him.

Overall, it wasn't much better, but it was a start; because as soon as he got his apartment, a lot of the stores overcharged him for low-quality goods, and a good number of restaurants would boot him out (he remembered the satisfaction he had when he got revenge on those bastards). That was undoubtedly bad, and he really hated those people even then; but he'd found other people who were actually nice to him, a miracle given that his apartment was smack-dab between the red-light district and a good shinobi community.

He remembered having a purple-haired neighbor move in to the apartment next door. She used to say mean things to him, but be nice to him anyway, telling him not to tell anyone she was ever nice to him...Naruto supposed she was too lonely to be completely mean, and he could relate to that; which was why they visited each other very frequently to comfort each other. Come to think of it, the minute she actually warmed up to him, he found that she was a very funny person who usually came with him to his pranks...a very pretty girl too. It was a fun time, and Hebi-neechan was the name he had for her, because she could summon snakes the way Kakashi-sensei could.

He also remembered having other shinobi come to visit him from time to time; Hokage-jiji's son Asuma, that funny-looking Maito Gai, a healthier Gekkō Hayate and his girlfriend at the time Uzuki Yugao, and several others. Even though he knew that they were only there because Hokage-jiji wanted someone to check up on him, it was never a dull moment.

Then came the day that everything changed...where his memory had ended.

It was at night, and Naruto decided to go for a stroll to clear his head after being taught about chakra by Inu, the ANBU agent assigned to guard him that day. This was because he was going to the academy in a few months. He then noted something was wrong when he saw some masked man running around with a large sack slung over his shoulder. Was he a pervert or something? The second he saw the contents of the sack moving around as if trying to get free, he immediately put two-and-two together! It was a kidnapping!

Naruto decided to charge in to grab the guy by his ankles, tripping him.

The man took great care to catch the package as it arced over his shoulder. After ensuring that his package was safe, the man soon turned to Naruto with a kunai in his hand-it was clear as day that he wasn't going to leave any witnesses, and so he jumped onto Naruto, trying to make sure that his target didn't escape, with his kunai ready to stab. Naruto raised his hands and turned his head away...this was it! This was the day he would die!

However, something strange happened, and he knew something was wrong when his vision was filled with an orange-ish light. He then hazarded a glance upward, and saw to his surprise that his assailant was laying on top of what appeared to be a thick, rectangular pane of transparent glass that was glowing the same orange light he was seeing. Apparently, the assassin shook off his shock long enough to stand up and hop upwards, and stomp on the panel three times hoping to bring his full weight down on Naruto and crush him with the glass. Naruto rolled away on the third try, causing the kidnapper to stomp down on nothing as the glass panel dissipated before he threw a kunai at Naruto, causing a small square of the orange-lit glass to reflexively materialize against his will, and deflect the kunai into a wall before de-materializing.

The kidnapper was shocked that this happened, and threw many kunai and shuriken at an equally-shocked Naruto, only for the same result to happen; every time something flew in Naruto's direction, every time it came close to him, that orange glass would materialize and deflect the kunai away from him before de-materializing almost instantly. Seeing that he had no other option, the attacker drew his last kunai, and attempted to stab Naruto to death once again. The attacker had gotten close enough, and mustered up as much strength as he could the second he saw the glass panel forming up once again at the last minute...and to his surprise, he finally shattered it! And his trajectory was getting dangerously close to a prone Naruto who simply swung his arm to shield himself from what was probably going to be his last view of anything as soon as he felt a mass land on him.

When he didn't feel the pricking of anything stabbing at him, Naruto opened his eyes...why did he feel wet? He then realized that the kidnapper was not moving. What the hell was going on? With a lot of effort, he pushed the body off of him, and saw that the kidnapper was dead; he looked like he was cut halfway into thirds on the torso, with the cut closest to his neck going all the way to where his heart would be.

He took a moment to throw up, and take in deep breaths, as Uzumaki Naruto had just made his first kill at a rather young age. Shaking off the shock of actually having killed someone, he reminded himself that there was a kidnap victim that needed to be rescued, and that he would have time to keep feeling sick later.

He went over to the bag, and opened it, finding that its contents was a scared little girl with pearlescent white eyes no older than he was. A Hyūga? Naruto gently coaxed her out of the bag, and tried his best to comfort her, telling her that it was okay, that she was safe now. The girl then hugged him tightly, as if she were afraid he'd disappear on her. As soon as he was able to pry her off of him, Naruto was about to take charge of the situation when the Hyūga girl gasped a word of warning too late: he felt a heavy blow to his head; which then caused him to fall to the floor at a really high speed; and then, blackness…

When Naruto woke up, he saw a white ceiling, and began to wonder where he was. What happened to him? Why did his head hurt? He then saw an old man in white robes sitting next to his bed, looking expectantly at him.

What came out of his mouth at that moment was very simple, but it had a very big effect: "Who are you?"

Those were three words were simple, but the sincerity behind them had caused the old man to have a heartbroken look on his face. He'd lost his memory from whatever happened to him.

As soon as he had finished his trip through his regained memories, Naruto was returned to where he was last; in the sewer, supposedly drowning.

He knew that since his last visit with Hokage-jiji, he took the next few months recovering...and when it was time to go to the Ninja Academy, Naruto had found it harder to study; he was distracted easily, showed no interest in his assignments, his memory so-so, and he had a hard time concentrating...as though someone put something in his brain that made it so that he would be dumbed down. It appeared that that problem was solved as soon as Hebi-teme did that jutsu that screwed with his chakra control. Once that was done, all the lessons started coming back to him with the memories he'd had up to this point...if this block in his head were removed from his head sooner, he would've been almost as smart as Shikamaru, and he would've tied with that stuck-up girl Setsuna, and shown up that know-it-all Sakura (who was, in all honesty getting better in terms of her fangirl infection).

However, Naruto was pulled away from his thoughts as soon as he saw a bright light in the distance. It seemed to be creeping closer and closer, and he didn't seem to have the strength to fight or fly. Accepting his fate as it was, he simply waited...he was ready to…

{Play: "Sakura" by Toshiro Masuda, from "Naruto"}

[Chūnin Exams rest area...shortly after the Training Ground 44 exam...]

When the light cleared up, Naruto woke up with a start. He was panting as he scanned his surroundings, sighing in relief when he realized that he was having a dream. But then again, he'd asked himself, if it were a dream, then why did it feel so real?

Relaxing on his own spot on the floor, Naruto's reverie was broken the second he heard yawning right next to him. He then saw, to his surprise, that Setsuna was waking up...right next to him! One of the hottest girls in class, and she was sleeping right next to him all this time, and now she was rubbing the sleep off her eyes!

"That was a good sleep I just had," she said, still a bit groggy before mustering the strength she had at the moment to glare at Naruto menacingly. The words that came out of her mouth afterward were deadpanned: "If you tell anyone I slept with you, I'm going to kill you, dobe."

"Well don't hold your breath, Ice Queen."

In response, Setsuna let out a proud 'hmph!' and got up to leave, with her fanatical servant-girl hovering next to her. The next part of the Chūnin exams was about to begin, and he was not about to miss it for the world!

A/N: And that's a wrap! Hopefully, I'll get enough reviews to continue on with this tale. Also, I will be taking submissions for beta-readers for this story, so please tell me if you're interested. I'll consider submitting more chapters to this story if I get at least 5 reviews. All that said and done, do read and review, would you kindly? Before I have to break into Dr. Suchong's lab, and find that plasmid.

Oh yeah, and another thing, before I forget: I'm going to take harem suggestions, but I'm going to try to keep the number reasonable. So far, Hinata, Tenten, and Anko (who are all my core harem choices) are in, so suggestions and why you want them in the harem would be lovely.