{new disclaimer StandardDisclaimer = If you recognize it, I probably don't own it. Naruto is owned by Kishimoto-sensei, Jump, and probably some other people too. I don't even own any stock in Jump, so I'm not one of them.}

The Shinobi Without Fear

Chapter 1 - Lost Light

Fear passes like the wind, arriving unexpectedly and leaving countless changes in its wake.

"...and so we welcome you, our newest students, to the Konohagakure Shinobi Academy in this, our…"

Uchiha Sasuke shut out the endless droning of the Academy's head chuunin instructor and glanced slightly to the side, nudging his ever-present companion. "Keep your face toward the sound, Naruto!" he hissed out softly. "They'll think your attention is wandering and you'll be in trouble before we even start!"

He turned his own gaze back dutifully once he saw his friend's goggles glint in the light again. The glare was annoying, but it let him keep track of Naruto's perpetually short attention span and drag it back on target before it became a problem. Who exactly thought it would be a good idea to make a field full of seven-year-olds stare into the morning sun for their first ever assembly, he didn't know, but for once he was almost envious of Naruto. He wasn't trying desperately not to squint rudely through the entire speech. The thought had his stomach clenched into a knot as soon as it formed, and he only resumed breathing when an elbow plowed silently into his ribs.

"You're thinking about it again. Stop."

~Three Years Prior~

Uzumaki Naruto, four-year-old terror of the Konoha orphanage, ran helter-skelter through the woods in the careless way that all children possess. While not yet what one would call a 'prankster', he delighted in surprising those around him in messy, usually attention-grabbing ways. It didn't endear him much to his caretakers or peers, but it got him more one-on-one time than the quiet kids saw and he'd take it any way he could get it. This time, he'd gone the simplest route by sneaking out of the play-yard when no one was looking. It took longer than most of his surprises to be noticed, but it meant a chase and then a lecture, so it lasted twice as long in the end!

He had already run pretty far, and there was a painful stitch forming on his side, but he had just started to hear the sounds of pursuit. He couldn't stop now! Bursting into a clearing, he risked a short glance over his shoulder to see how close they were. A short, sharp shout of warning from ahead and off to the side brought his head around like a whip. There was a sharp whirring sound in his ear, and then pain.

Incredible pain, like nothing he could have imagined, drew a razor line from temple to temple in an instant. He screamed, fell, tumbled end over end, and stopped in a ragged heap. There was a horrified yell, a cackle of amusement, a shout of warning. He couldn't think, couldn't see past the burning feeling on his face, couldn't do anything but scream and try not to touch his face. They'd stressed that, at the orphanage, don't touch a wound with dirty hands. Don't touch. Don't touch. His face was on fire, everything was wet. So wet. His face was on fire, but everything was so cold.

Pain gave way to blissful stillness, and everything drifted away.

~SWF~

Kurama raged against the bars of his cage, screaming his fury into the uncaring void. The child, the idiot child, had run straight into a brace of shuriken. At first, he was pleased. So short, this time! His freedom imminent once again! He had readied himself, hunched over and with his remaining chakra held tight against the unraveling of the seal. The damnable draw on his power, minuscule as it had been, grew weaker as his pathetic excuse for a container bled out, and he grew more confident still.

When the cold began leeching through the bars, though, and the laughter of the shinigami began to fill his ears, that was when the anger came. Bad enough to be held captive like a common animal. Bad enough to be yoked like one to the pull-cart of the seal, forced to provide even a token of his strength. He could push more than was asked for, erode it with time, and feed his hatred into the whelp until it snapped and released the seal willingly. All of that, he could tolerate.

But to be trapped by its death? To suffer the indignity of dispersion, at best, to die truly alongside it at worst? Never! And so he raged, and roared, and spat defiance at the name of the damnable Yondaime. But he was not desperate, yet. Not truly. And so his chakra did not flow more than the seal demanded. And so a young boy was condemned to darkness forever.

~SWF~

When Naruto awoke again, his world was still dark. He could hear soft beeping from one side, soft breathing from the other, and a distant jumble of noises beyond both. He could feel crisp linens beneath him, a soft blanket above, and tight bandages wrapped around his face and neck. He could smell the sharp tang of disinfectant and bleach, taste a sourness in his mouth. But he could see nothing, and a sharp pain barely dulled by the drugs in him met and countered his attempt at opening his eyes.

His gasp of pain garnered an instant response from the breathing to his side. A sharp intake of breath, a rustle of movement, and cold hands wrapped around his own.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I was training alone, and I thought you were my brother coming to make me stop, and I threw them, and now you...I'm sorry!"

Naruto did not know the voice but it seemed sincere, and they were waiting for him to wake up so whoever it was, they couldn't be a bad person. Bad people laughed when you got hurt, they didn't grab your hand and apologize like that. A smile split the bandages on his face, and he croaked out his best 'everything's okay' voice. "If you're really sorry…" he started, and felt the hands clench on his.

"I am! I really really am!" the voice insisted.

"Then...be my friend?"

"Re-really? Even though I-"

"Mm. Be my friend, and I'll forgive you. But only then."

"OK. Friends, then! Don't move! I'm gonna go get the nurse, okay? They said to tell them when you woke up!"

The hands left, and tiny footsteps pounded out of the room. The distant voices grew louder, but he was already drifting away again. He had a friend! Everything was dark, but that wasn't so bad. The nights were never as bad when he wasn't alone.

~SWF~

Measuring the passage of time from within the seal was difficult. Perception was his to control, but without an external reference point who was to say whether he had waited five minutes, five days, or five years? He could get hints, scattered thoughts and impressions drifting along the backwash of shared chakra, but it was always at its most difficult so soon after a sealing. The coldness, at least, has retreated, the mocking laughter gone once more. The child was no longer dragging him down to death. Best now to see about feeding it a bit more chakra, so that its eyes could repair themselves properly. He pushed lightly against the seal, released some trivial amount more than usual, expecting to feel the draw increase as the body desperately started to pull itself back together as usual.

There was no such draw, the initial surge of chakra more than sufficient to heal what little injury remained. Kurama paused momentarily, confused. The humans were nowhere near skilled enough to repair such delicate tissues the way the regeneration he provided could. Surely they knew his container would inevitably heal. Surely they had not just patched over the damage with their ham-fisted medical techniques. He pushed a bit more chakra against the seal, then pulled it back rapidly, hoping to drag more impressions out of the boy's own.

Rage and fear consumed him once more as he absorbed the echoes. The body considered itself intact, there was hardly any scar tissue to pave over, no missing flesh to regenerate. He pushed harder, pulled again, sought the answer that would damn them both and found it. They had, the cursed humans had tried to repair the child's eyes themselves, and botched the job. He couldn't know whether by design or just by lack of skill, but from what he could sense those eyes would never work again. Better to just gouge them out and let him fix them properly, but they would never allow such a thing.

He raged and he stormed, but eventually the great Kyuubi no Kitsune let slip his perception of time once again and settled down for a good sulk. He would find an answer soon enough. He would not die for this pathetic container's foolishness.

~SWF~

Even with medical jutsu, healing took time. Judicious use of medical techniques kept healing wounds clean of bacteria and other infection vectors, and usually surface damage at least could be closed over rapidly enough that repeated redressing of wounds was only necessary in field hospitals where conditions could not be controlled well. So it was that nearly a week passed before protocol called for removing Naruto's current bandages. He no longer felt any pain, but despite repeated protests to that effect the nurses refused to rush things along.

Sasuke had been a frequent visitor this past week; always at least once daily and twice coming both before and after lunch. They had talked of training and of life in the orphanage compared to the sometimes stifling structure of the Uchiha compound. Both agreed that there was room for improvement in both lifestyles, but Naruto was adamant that the reward of ready attention was more than worth the trade of strict observation and Sasuke was young enough to fully agree. Naruto was hoping he would be able to meet some of Sasuke's family once he got out, but the Uchiha had mumbled about his clan not liking visitors from the rest of the village and he didn't want to push his new friend away so soon and so refrained from asking again.

Such were his thoughts while he suffered the pleasant indignity of being fed. It was nice to be cared for so individually, but the clinical nature of the interaction took a lot of the joy out of it and he couldn't help but feel like a baby the whole time. He was four! He should be feeding himself! His grumbles were cut off when the nurse started none-too-gently wiping his face; tutting to herself until the door to the room slid open.

He recognized the wash of antiseptic smell that heralded his least favorite person, the medi-nin who had ordered him to leave the bandages on his face alone until they were removed for him. He counted the days quickly on his fingers, then brightened. "Ne, ne, medic-san! Are you here to take these rags off? Today's the day, right?"

There was no immediate response that he could make out, but the nurse rapidly finished cleaning up from lunch and then left with a quiet farewell. The room was silent for a moment, then something squeaked on the opposite side of the bed from where the nurse had sat. He felt the cool sensation of medical chakra moving over his face, and squirmed a little at the sensation but made sure not to move his head. That would just make the medic start all over again. The coolness fell away, but before he could open his mouth to ask again the man spoke.

"Naruto-kun...well. It looks like everything is as healed under there as it's going to get, so yes, I'm going to take these off in a moment. However, I have to warn you. Eyes are some of the most difficult things to properly heal, especially when the damage is as severe as what you suffered. We've done everything we could, but I have to warn you that your vision may be severely, permanently impaired."

The medic had to repeat himself a few times, each repetition more simplified than the last, before the reality of what he was told truly began to sink in. He was uncharacteristically silent as the bandages were unwound, and he barely listened to the medic's continued admonitions and suggestions of strategies for managing his new disability. When at last his head was free, he turned towards where he could feel the sunlight pouring through the window. He'd always loved the sun and the trees; he wanted them to be the first things he saw when he finally opened his eyes again.

Sasuke padded quietly down the hospital hallway, the path now more than familiar enough that he simply skipped the nurse station. A medic-nin, looking both frustrated and pained, brushed past him moving in the opposite direction and he twisted his head briefly to follow the motion. There aren't many patients right now, with the village at peace, so the natural conclusion was that the medic had just come from Naruto's room. The frustration made sense, Naruto has been anything but cooperative, but the pain in the medic's bearing made him nervous.

His steps picked up, and he dashed the last few yards only to stop at the still-open door. Peering in cautiously, he slowly moved further into the room and found Naruto sitting up in bed, looking at the window. The bandages are off! He's looking at the window! That must mean - he dashed excitedly into the room and around the end of the bed, only to stumble when he finally saw the face that had haunted his dreams the past week. Naruto was staring fixedly out the window, tears streaming down from cloudy, sightless eyes. Guilt stabbed into his gut anew and stole his breath away. He wanted to say something, anything, but his throat was tight and his own eyes were stinging in sympathy.

Naruto was silent, but past conversations weighed heavy in Sasuke's mind. They had talked about their dreams just the day before, Sasuke to be as good a ninja as his older brother Itachi, and Naruto to become a great ninja that everybody knew and respected. His throat refused to let go of itself, and his hands curled into tight fists around the hem of his shirt. His fault, his friend was going to lose his dream and it's all his fault.

Sasuke's head snapped towards the door, and Naruto's followed a beat later as his hands furiously tried to scrub the tears away when a new voice cut quietly into their shared silence.

"Any ninja can grow strong just from training, just from their natural talents. But the greatest of ninja, the ones whose names shake and shape the world, are the ones who have cast aside all limitations. The ones who have succeeded whether others have proclaimed them prodigy, or failure. Remember this, otouto, Naruto-kun. No other defines the potential of a great shinobi than they themselves."

Sasuke stared at Itachi for a long moment, unaware that he had been followed. He hadn't told anyone where he'd been running off to every day for fear of being told he couldn't, but rather than stopping him, taking him home, Itachi-nii was...trying to help? He turned his head toward Naruto, wondering when Itachi-nii had learned who his friend was, and saw Naruto furiously scrubbing the last of his tears away with an overdone sniff that would have sounded absurd in any other context.

"Then….then, if no one else can tell me what kind of ninja I can or can't be...I'm gonna be the greatest ninja ever. No, the Hokage! No...the greatest Hokage ever! Better than jiji, better than Yondaime, better than all of them-ttebayo!"

Sasuke was stunned. It was like a switch had been flipped, and the brightest, most determined smile he'd ever seen was erupting out of Naruto's face. You could barely even see the scars when his eyes wrinkled shut like that, and in that instant, he could almost forget the crippling handicap his friend would be working under. Could almost believe that he'd do it. Well, Sasuke was going to have the Sharingan, right? Then…

"Then I'll see well enough for both of us. And together, we'll be the greatest shinobi in Konoha."

Itachi allowed the briefest secret smile to cross his lips. Perhaps now Sasuke would stop carrying around quite so much guilt. He hadn't been pestered to help his otouto train in days, and it was quite worrisome. If nothing else, the two should be able to keep each other out of trouble for a while.

~SWF~

He had never been known for serenity at any point in his long life, but rarely had Kurama found himself so furious so often in such a short time. Get angry, crush and rend asunder whatever incurred his wrath, then sleep it off. Rinse and repeat as necessary. It was a simple formula and one that he was rather partial to. His continued imprisonment had certainly put a dent in things, but he was ancient and immortal and he could bide his time with the best of them. He simply simmered in his hate and anger, and let his chakra tilt further and further into a corrosive blend of all the negative emotions that plagued his senses.

He had consigned himself to waiting out yet another mortal lifespan, most likely elongated now that his container would have to scrap any plans of a ninja career. All to the better, as it would give him more time to erode the seal unnoticed or better still, convince the child to remove it entirely, freeing him from the trap he had found himself in.

No, that was not good enough for the cursed blonde idiot child. Such pathetic words, yet they echoed through the cesspit of its mind and blasted away the cloud of despair. Hope; wretched useless hope had replaced it and they were going to go to their deaths together for it. And all for the words of an Uchiha no less. The child ran headlong into a flight of shuriken when it could see. What in the Sage's name was it going to do now?

His rage and desperation built, hopelessly entwined, and he railed against the bars of his seal-prison anew. Again, and again, with no regard for reason or sense. If he could just reach far enough, push enough of himself into the child, perhaps he could fix things still. His chakra has always burned at his hosts, clawed at their fragile flesh, and if he could just push enough maybe he could burn its useless eyes out and make it grow new ones.

The Fourth's seal was strong, though, and would not allow so much chakra through yet. What did get through was still much more than the child's far-from-fully-developed chakra pathways could contain, and a brief burst of his chakra blasted out into the room. Dimly he was aware of the panic of his container, awoken in the dead of night by the agonizing sensations. Dimly, he was aware of new presences that rushed into the room, unclear voices that echoed through the twisted corridors of the seal-space. Dimly, yes, but aware.

He was more cautious the next time, more deliberate. He paid no mind to the passage of time and devoted all of his attention to the echoes, the impressions fed back past the seal through the connection between his chakra and the child's. Again the blast of chakra, the sudden screaming awareness of his warden, the dim echoes of the room and running, panicked humans. He had not imagined it. He could work with this.

Again, and again, and again, he carefully adjusted how much he pushed each time. It was useless if he pushed too much; the agony and panic of his container tainted everything and washed out the useful information. Unknowingly, each time his chakra forced its way out the child's pathways were stretched and distended, only to heal and settle under the regenerative influence of the chakra which pounded through them.

Eventually, he found balance. Enough pressure to force the child's own chakra out of its body at a steady rate, but not so much that any of his own actually escaped. The deeper mingling of their powers fed back a clearer echo, and the smoother, less corrosive and tangled nature of the child's own chakra provided a better base image beyond that.

It was likely exhausting for his host, to constantly be absorbing and channeling so much of his chakra, but that was of no concern. The child would adapt, was adapting already, and if it had any intelligence at all it would learn to read the echoes the same way he was learning to. And perhaps, perhaps, they would together survive this idiocy.

At least now he knew how much time was passing.

~SWF~

Naruto had thought that nothing would ever hurt more than those shuriken, or scare him more than finding out he was forever blind. He had been so, so wrong. He didn't know what was happening to him, what caused his entire body to burst out in searing flame from the inside, but it made everyone nearby panic and scream at him to stop. Sometimes they shook him or slapped him but all he could do was scream back at them that it wasn't his fault, he wasn't doing anything, it hurt, it hurt, make it stop!

It had come and gone for days and days and in all that time they refused to let anyone who wasn't a medic or ANBU into his room. He only knew about the ANBU because one time when they thought he was asleep he heard one of the nurses asking 'ANBU-san' if they wanted any coffee, but he didn't know if that made things better or worse.

Finally, though, the painful flares had died down. There was a steady warmth, a constant pressure throughout his body but it no longer hurt. It just...was. Like a belly that was just a little too full, or a fire that was just a little too close. Uncomfortable yes, but he could deal with it without screaming and they were slowly acting less scared of him.

There was something else that tickled at the back of his mind, some new awareness that was building, but it was still competing with his other senses. He had already started to notice what he vaguely remembered one of the medics telling him about before all the burning and screaming. His hearing was getting better, his smell and taste and touch too. He was more aware of everything around him, and it was scary not knowing what all the new sounds and smells were, but it was better than not knowing about anything around himself at all.

On the second day after things had calmed down, he got a brief visit from Jiji and Itachi. It was late at night, and he was only a little bit awake, but he caught snippets of their conversation. Something about a seal, and Itachi not being an expert on them, but Jiji mostly just wanted Itachi to look at Naruto's 'chakra' for him and he was trying to keep Naruto's blindness as quiet as he could so he didn't want to involve anyone else yet. He drifted away again before he could hear anything more.

~SWF~

The third time Itachi came to his room Naruto was awake again, though his eyes were closed as was slowly becoming a habit. He hadn't heard or smelled any change, but he found himself aware of the added presence all the same. He'd started to notice it in the last few days; the same feeling of energy that was pushing out of him seemed to bounce off everything around him and come back to caress his skin, changed and reshaped by what it had encountered in the world.

It was vague and blurry and hard to understand, but he could now tell without having to reach out for them where the bed rails were, where the water glass on the side table was. He couldn't always tell when one of the nurses was coming in, not besides hearing them, but every time one of the medic-nins came into the room or even walked by when his door was open he could feel something else that was like his energy but not the same. It disturbed his own, sent ripples through it like what he saw when he kicked rocks into a puddle.

Sasuke, who'd started to be allowed to visit again, was dull but crackly and warm. This new person felt like the same kind of warm, but sharper and stronger and quieter all at the same time, and he almost missed him at first. He hadn't meant to, but he reflexively turned towards the source of the ripples, and they immediately stopped. Now nervous about who was sneaking into his room like that, he dared to pipe up and ask the obvious question.

"Who's there?"

The ripples resumed, slower this time, and they settled down just out of arm's reach. He got a vague impression that they had sat down, on the stool that creaked just so when the medic-nin sat but didn't for this person.

"We were not properly introduced, were we? Sasuke was a bit too distracted. My name is Itachi, his brother. Naruto-kun...how did you know I was in the room?"

"I, um, felt you? It's...weird. Ever since it stopped hurting, I think, I can kinda, dunno, feel things? Like with my hands, but not? And everyone feels a little different but I guess you kinda feel like Sasuke but sharper and quieter?"

"Hm. I will ask Hokage-sama if he has any ideas. For now, do not mention this to anyone else."

Itachi stayed a bit longer but did not have much else to say before he left as quietly as he had arrived, and Naruto resumed exploring his new sense as best he could.

~SWF~

"I cannot speak to the sanctity of the seal, Hokage-sama, but it is clearly the demon's chakra that is the source of Naruto-kun's emissions. It seems the seal connects their chakra, and the demon's is pushing outward enough to force Naruto-kun's own into motion. So far its influence is restricted only to those portions of his chakra network closest to the seal and does not seem to be expanding beyond that point. The seal itself, however, is now in constant view. We will need to await Jiraiya-sama's inspection to learn more."

Itachi paused in his report long enough to confirm that the Sandaime had no questions for him yet, then nodded and continued at a small gesture from his Hokage.

"Naruto-kun reports that after the surges subsided and the steady influx of chakra stopped being painful, he has begun to gain a primitive chakra sense. From what I can see, he is feeling his expelled chakra roll back to himself after imprinting against the world around him. He describes it as being similar to his sense of touch, but it also appears to be sensitive to other sources of chakra. I apparently feel similarly to my otouto, but 'sharper and quieter'. Notably, he was able to detect my presence when I was attempting to remain outside his notice until I suppressed my own chakra."

Sarutobi was silent for an extended period of time, his gaze fixed on a point somewhere behind and above the small Uchiha prodigy. Itachi casually suppressed the urge to shift or look around as he waited for further question or instruction. Some called him a genius, but quietly he believed that no small part of this came from his habit of using every possible opportunity to train even the smallest amount. Shinobi were silent and motionless unless noise or movement were necessary, and he was a genin now. He would wait.

"Thank you, Itachi-kun. Please locate Genin Umino Iruka and ask him to report to me. After that, you may return to your team. What you have seen and learned today remains an S-class secret that should be discussed only with myself or Jiraiya. I trust your continued discretion in this matter. Dismissed."

"Hai, Hokage-sama." Itachi murmured. A quick stop at the Mission Desk should provide him with Umino-san's location, and then he could get back to his training.

~SWF~

Umino Iruka felt his stomach clench as he stepped into the demon child's hospital room. He had already felt the beginnings of the child's chakra when he stepped onto this floor, but the closer he had come the more he began to feel the echoes of its chakra within the outer shell. That thing had killed his parents and left him orphaned, and now he was supposed to share some of the secrets of his father's technique with its container? His respect for his Hokage had never been so low, but at least he was going to have his memories sealed afterward so he wouldn't have to think about it every day.

Fists clenched, he stepped into the room and marched to its bedside, all but throwing himself into the chair next to its bed. It certainly didn't look injured, thin hospital gown and sheets be damned. And it may have been tiny and helpless in appearance, but the echo of malice and power rolling out of its body was enough to prove that lie, even to a sensor ability as basic as his own. He seethed and clenched his teeth against the rising bile in his throat, and crossed his arms so that he wouldn't be tempted to wring the thing's neck. He would teach it, yes, but only-

His breath caught when the child rolled over and sat up, blinking a few times blearily before its eyes slid slowly shut again. A scar, not dissimilar to the one that crossed his own nose if far thinner, ran across the child's face. Directly over its eyes, which in the moment he had seen them seemed clouded and misshapen. Unbidden, the words of the Hokage echoed through his mind and he felt the bile rising further, this time for an entirely different reason.

"He has suffered terribly, Iruka-kun. I am only asking this of you because he has already started to develop a technique not dissimilar to that of your family, and if he is to survive and fulfill his dream of becoming the ninja I know he can become he will need guidance. I do not ask you to share the greatest secrets of your father's teachings, just enough that he can learn the rest for himself with time."

The demon...no. The child was blinded, and judging by the fresh scar and their current location it was a recent event. He was the scroll, not the kunai, and no child deserved that kind of pain. Then the child's face lit up with a smile as bright as the sun, and it-he began a chattering, manic self-introduction. Despite himself, Iruka felt the tension leave his shoulders and his gut settled down.

"My name is Umino Iruka. I am a Genin, and the Hokage has asked me to help you learn to interpret what you are feeling from your chakra…"

Much later, Iruka blinked as he was leaving the hospital to go meet up with his sensei and teammates. A blonde ANBU was ruffling his hair, but before he could ask why, the shinobi vanished in a soft swirl of leaves. He must have hit his head harder than he thought when Uchiha-san surprised him on the training ground this morning; he couldn't seem to remember anything between that moment and now. With a shrug, he ran off into the fading light to find out what he had missed that day.

~Present Day~

Sasuke was fairly certain he hadn't ever really stopped thinking about those weeks in the past three years. When Naruto had finally been released from the hospital and Sasuke had snuck into the orphanage to visit him, he had been furious to see the other kids bullying him about his new disability and the staff doing nothing to help. He'd run straight home and demanded his mother do something about it. Childish yes, but, well. He was four. It wasn't like he could solve the problem himself.

At first, when he'd finally told his mother who this mysterious friend of his was, he'd been afraid she was angry at him. It turned out she was angry at the Hokage and hadn't that been a scary conversation!

That talk paled in comparison to when the three of them snuck over to the orphanage so the Hokage could see for himself. The next thing Sasuke knew, ANBU were swarming the place like ants after their hill had been kicked and then they were back in the Hokage's office, now with Naruto virtually glued to his side. His mother all but begged the Hokage to let them take in Naruto, something about it being what 'she' would have wanted, and then he and Naruto were excused while the adults finished their talk. Kaa-chan didn't get her way, not completely, but Naruto was moved to an apartment building near the Uchiha compound. A few ANBU minders would make sure he didn't get into too much trouble by himself, and Kaa-chan would quietly make sure he always had home-cooked meals for the ANBU or Sasuke himself to bring over.

The friendship he had agreed to out of guilt and grief blossomed into something more genuine over the months that followed as he helped Naruto regain a semblance of normalcy in his life. Under the watchful eyes of ANBU, and when she could sneak over his mother, he had helped the blonde menace to learn manners, discipline, and most important, how to navigate in a world without light.

His father, it was agreed by all, was not to know. Chichiue would see it as a waste of time, and though he didn't understand at the time, the village was very suspicious of any interaction between the Uchiha clan and the Uzumaki. Thankfully the apartment building itself was largely filled by younger civilians who were loosely allied with the Uchiha clan economically, and they turned a blind eye.

The first few months had been the hardest. Naruto had had to learn to walk around with a padded stick held out in front of himself vertically. At first, he had tried to hold it straight out ahead but kept either poking himself in the stomach when it ran into something or bashing some other part of himself into surfaces that the pole didn't intercept. When he finally managed to get enough control over whatever weird sense it was that he was learning and could ditch the stick, Naruto had still been scared to go out in public. The experience with the bullies and staff at the orphanage had taught him quickly that people knowing about his eyes was inviting trouble.

For a few months they played on the roof of Naruto's building whenever they needed more space than the apartment had to offer but eventually, an off-hand comment to his mother brought up a solution. Apparently, he'd had a cousin once who wore goggles to protect his eyes until the Sharingan developed. While those were too transparent for this purpose, some shopping around in the district resulted in a set of green goggles with individual lenses. A little extra bargaining got them tinted, so even in bright light you couldn't see what was behind them, and soon Naruto could be found traipsing carefully around the village again at last.

By then a year had already passed, and Sasuke had been itching to start training again. Now that Naruto could 'see' more than a few feet away at a time, they started meeting in the same clearing in the woods where they had first encountered one another. It took several weeks before Naruto stopped flinching at the sound of flying shuriken, and it was nearly another year before he could 'see' far enough to hit things accurately without Sasuke hitting it first to give him an audio target. Slowly but surely, they built up their skills. There was no question that Sasuke could have learned faster on his own, but there was also no question of leaving Naruto behind. He had made a promise to be his friend's eyes.

The last year had gone quickly as well. For all that Naruto could navigate passably now, and was slowly pushing his 'sight' out further and further, it was still no substitute for real vision in a lot of important ways. His friend had already been lagging behind in learning to read before everything went wrong, but without being able to actually see the text it was proving all but impossible.

They had found enough woodcut texts that Naruto could trace with his fingers that he wasn't completely illiterate, and Tora had helped Naruto learn how to replicate the characters with a pencil, but there was no way he was going to be able to make it through the academy at this rate. Blind shinobi were not unheard of, it was amazing what you could overcome with training and chakra, but Konoha's Academy was heavily reliant on book-learning and written tests. And with the attitude of most of Konoha already against Naruto, for reasons no-one was ever willing or able to explain to the two, it wasn't like they'd be able to get him apprenticed to a Jounin-sensei directly.

In the end, Sasuke had pleaded with Itachi to intervene on their behalf to the Hokage. The recently-promoted ANBU helped arrange things to ensure that the two would be paired in all their classes until graduation; this would allow Sasuke to quietly read any required texts aloud to the blonde until they figured out a permanent solution. It would be tricky, especially to make sure none of the teachers thought they were cheating, but it was a start.

"And so, without further ado, let's head inside and start you on this great path to becoming fine Konoha Shinobi!"

Drawn out of his musings more by the abrupt end of the speech than by Naruto's increasingly fierce elbow, Sasuke shoved back to get a little breathing room with a smile. He'd stop thinking about it, as asked. For at least a few hours. Quietly aiming Naruto in the right direction for the doors, as they were a little further away than his friend's fifteen or so meter sight range, he headed inside to properly follow in his brother's footsteps at last.

A/N: So this whole thing has come about as a response to a challenge listed on Leaf Ranger's profile from Bill Alain, "The Ninja Without Fear". As I hope is obvious by now, it's a Daredevil twist on the Naruto story. I've been wanting to write a Naruto fic for a while, but my brain was just continually spamming Peggy Sue fic concepts and as much as I enjoy them I wanted to try something different, especially as I have two Peggy Sue fics already on the back burner while I wait for the proverbial muse to look that way again (Harry Potter and One Piece, for those who are curious.) While Sasuke was the primary POV for this chapter, that will not be the case moving forward. In many ways, his is the character that was changed the most by the Incident, so I wanted to make sure I spent enough time in his head for everyone, myself included, to understand the differences. We'll be pretty firmly in Naruto's head starting next chapter.

Per the original challenge request, this will be a NaruHina fic, although the pairing itself will not be the focus of the story and it won't really be a thing until post-time skip anyways (assuming I don't burn out before I reach that point.) Reviews, no matter how impassioned, will change neither the pairing nor the timing. I don't have an OTP myself, so I'm happy to write it as the challenge requested, and I'm not comfortable writing anything besides puppy love between 13-year-olds. Not gonna grief anyone who does, it's just not my thing. Sorry!

I'm sure you've already noticed the smattering of Japanese sprinkled throughout the story. I prefer the 'sound' of Japanese for jutsus, honorifics, and even the dreaded verbal tics. (Believe it, ne?) This also means I'll be using the Japanese order for person names, and occasionally butchering the language as needed for anything new I'm adding to any given shinobi's repertoire. For reading purposes, pretend that everything the characters are saying is in Japanese, I'm just 'translating' most of it for all of our sakes. I'm pretty comfortable with the language myself, but if people are having a hard time let me know and I can at least start including some short translation entries in the A/Ns.

Throughout the story, you may recognize some concepts that you've seen in other stories. I've read...yikes, probably a couple million words of fanfic in various fandoms in the past year or two since I first started reading "Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality" towards the end of its run. At this point, it's all kludged together in my head and I can't separate it without actually going back and reading the story where I first saw it again. I'm doing that with the original manga as I go here so that I don't destroy canon more than I mean to, but I can't possibly do that with all the fics I've read and still have time to write. Please think of this as more of an homage than any attempt at uncredited idea theft. If it's in my story, it's because I really damn well liked it and couldn't come up with anything better to use myself. When I'm aware I'm doing it, I'll make sure to credit the original idea in my notes. If you think I've missed a reference, please let me know in a review. If I've read the story you think it came from, I'll make sure to update the relevant chapter.

As for canon itself? I draw almost exclusively from the manga. I stopped watching the anime shortly after the "Sasuke Retrieval" arc when it went to 99% filler, and never really got back into it when Shippuden rolled around. I'll borrow things from the anime/movies here and there, but please don't come in flaming about how "this or that was explained differently, didn't you watch that episode?". Canon is a guideline anyway more so than any sort of rulebook for my purposes, even if this train will be making a lot of stops at the various stations of the canon. (Curse you for your blessings, TV Tropes.) That said...a lot of the stupid that pops up in a Fridge Logic sense, such as "why was Naruto never adopted, etc" is an artifact of how the story evolved from its original one-shot into the epic that we all love enough to keep reading other variations of it long, long after that first volume ever came out. I'm not interested in retroactively solving all those plot holes myself, so unless I need to do so for my story, you can fill those gaps yourselves the same way we all did when the original came out…(reader omake, anyone? :P)

As of this writing, I don't have a beta. If anyone is interested in stepping into that role, PM me and we'll talk. As an untested writer, I'm not going to demand a beta with reams of experience, but I'm pretty solid on basic spelling and grammar checking so I'm more interested in someone who can help spot any gaping plot holes in time for me to pave over them. Also, I would not be averse to help with dialogue. I have...no practical experience with how four-year-olds actually talk, and I feel like Naruto is way too articulate in these early scenes, but I have no idea how to fix it. To say nothing of the potential OOC nature of anything that comes out of anyone's mouth at this stage. But as we go, hopefully, I'll get comfortable with these characters fast enough that you, my wonderful readers, can just tough it out with me.

If you've come this far and you're still reading, I hope you've enjoyed the start and will stick around for a while. This A/N is already somewhere around a thousand words, so it's time to shut up and start writing the next chapter. Thanks, and enjoy the ride!

-Pebkac42

PS: My shinobi wear boots because I don't have a thing for writing about toes the way Kishimoto-sensei does about drawing them. Unless I specifically say otherwise, assume any shinobi you read in this tale is wearing close-toed footwear of some sort.

[Edited 1/23/17

Grammar Edit: Corrected tenses, broke up overly long paragraphs and sentences, and shuffled a few words around for comprehensibility.

Content Edit: Corrected references to chakra coils in Kurama segment; replaced with chakra pathways. Coils surround chakra-producing organs and collect physical/spiritual energy. Pathways allow for the resulting chakra to be moved around the body. Or so I paraphrase from el wiki. If it ever becomes really important we'll cover it in-story; probably while discussing the Byakugan and what it sees.]