Disclaimer: Masashi Kishimoto owns the character, me just the plot.
Chapter 1 – Like Father, Like Son
Life is not fair.
No parent. No friends. No one cared.
Naruto's parents left him at such a young age, just few months old. Plus the social environment where he grew up did not help but break him further. Murmurs of caution and hatred revolved around him.
"He's trouble. Don't come near him."
"Stay away from him. He's a curse to the village."
"He's a freak. Don't play with him."
The discriminating words terrorized his ear incessantly, and he could not block them out even though he covered his ears tightly and ran away from the accusations. They had successfully invaded his poor mind, ingrained deeply in his brain and then manifested as cruel nightmares at night. Naruto was still very young. His childish mind could not comprehend what was going on, yet there was one thing that he could understand: it hurt. And sadly, that was his first intense emotion he first learned and needed to deal with, possibly for the rest of his life. The pain.
Naruto's childhood was horrible. As he grew up year after year, the hurtful feeling rooted deeper and became more intense too. It began to take various forms of negative emotions. Loneliness. How so lonely the young blond felt everyday: his morning was void of good-smelling breakfast (preferably ramen) and warm greeting from a parent, his playtime was mostly spent alone (sometimes with few boys which did not consider him a friend), and every time he came home, how he greatly wished he would be welcomed home with "okaeri".
Well, Naruto had a couple of people who tried to fill the hole in his heart called 'Home': the Third Hokage and Iruka-sensei. Sandaime looked after the young blond in every way and sometimes played with him, ended with chastises for his childish pranks. There were sweet moments too, when the Third told stories of the blond's dad, proudly reminiscing how his dad became a hero. Listening about his dad, Naruto could not help but feel proud of his dad, of each heroic feat which the Third Hokage fondly and vividly recalled. He felt the pleasant warmth sweetly encompassing his heart and soul, wishing the bliss to hold him forever. He also noticed too that the old geezer (a secret nickname made by you-know-who) could feel that same nice feeling since he clearly showed it in his proud smiles and crinkled, fond eyes. Or to be more precise, every time Sandaime began storytelling, that fond expression was always present. His dad must be really close and important to the old man. Naruto was utterly grateful for his dad. He felt at home – Dad's great stories. Old man's warm expression.
Sadly, those sweet moments did not last long. Their soothing warmth could not but slowly diminish as cold sentiment and social pressure found their way back to his heart, heavy and cold. As Naruto began to discover some missing pieces, he formed questions in his mind. 'What is my father's name?' 'And my mother's?' 'Why do they loathe me?' 'What is wrong with me?' 'Or perhaps what is wrong with them?' 'Do my parent die because the villagers hate them too?' The boy tried to seek answers, asking Sandaime and his favorite sensei indirectly. Their apologetic smiles and comforting gestures were no help. Sandaime's reply was even worse as Naruto felt somewhat betrayed when he later discovered the names the Third Hokage answered him were just nicknames. Naruto felt more frustrated because more and more questions began to bombard his mind, because he did not know – the reasons why, the reasons how come he deserved this shitty life–, and because these unanswered mysteries kept bugging his brain. Soon his questions became self-centered and self-pity; he befriended another new intense emotion: despair. 'Why am I be born?' 'Am I fated to this shit?' 'Why must fate be so cruel?' Helplessness and deep hatred flooded his emotions. He hated his own shitty life. He hated he did not understand a thing. He hated with what he did not know. He extremely loathed it to the point he plunged deeply in his helplessness.
Darker thoughts crept into his desperate mind. 'I hate this. I wish I die.' Tears began to well up in his dull blue eyes and trailed down his face.
'Heh, I bet no one cares if I die.
No. They actually care.
It made them damn happy.'
Sobs shook his body, and his tears now wet his cheeks. He spotted a ninja kunai on his desk, highlighted by the moonlight. At the sight of his blade, a suicidal thought came up. His shaking hand reached out the blade. Soon his little body trembled when the blade hesitantly made contact with his arm. He still feared death and disliked physical pain, but the dark thoughts kept whispering and slowly overcame his fear.
'I'm better dead. I'm better dead'.
'They wish me dead. Want me dead.'
'Dead. Dead.'
Naruto winced at the sharp pain as soon as he felt the cut and tear in his flesh. Still shaking, he closed his eyes to block the vision of his blood oozing out of his arm. The physical pain did not fail to remind him of his emotional one. Images of faces with disdain, disgust, and caution directed at him vividly displayed themselves. He could hear clearly all the hurtful accusations thrown at him as if they were voiced near his ears. He felt the scene unfolded before him was so real. There he was, standing and watching them. There they were, looking down on him with hatred and murmuring scornful words. Soon, one by one they left, and he was alone. In pain. In loneliness. In despair.
His poor heart was shattered. His body was more shaken. His closed eyes were squeezed as more tears rolled down freely on his face. It hurt. It hurt. It hurt. It hurt… He now was crying and stabbing his bleeding arms with ferocity. The physical stab could not be compared to the pain which stabbed his heart continuously, tearing it into pieces. A heavy cold emotion overwhelmed his heart, even though his own physical body contradicted it with warmth, or perhaps heat. The intense heat caused the boy to open his eyes and look at the damage he had done on his arm. However, he did not expect a strange, red chakra-like thing engulfing his arms, causing him to flinch backward and throw the kunai to the floor. His blue eyes widened remarkably in surprise at flesh tissues attaching themselves and visible veins reconnecting with other veins. The blond panicked in fear, and in that instant moment, a realization hit him like a big rock hurled at him. "He's a freak".
New fresh tears flowed down on his face. 'Yes, I–I'm a freak.' 'I'm not normal.' 'Wh–who the hell am I?' This self-discovery overcame the boy with newfound fear and terror. He breathed laboriously and dropped his gaze to the ground, not daring to look at the red stuff surrounding his arm. He spotted the gleaming kunai on the floor with his watery eyes and quickly averted his gaze from the red stain on the blade. To his surprise, he was confronted by a terror-stricken face with tear-stained cheek and agape mouth. The reflected blue eyes were so wide that the blond could not miss the red slits which diminished slowly. The eyes staring at him were so scared while tears still flowed down from them. Naruto jumped back frightfully at the sight of similarly scared expression, landing onto the floor on his butt. His heart pounded so hard that it seemed the loudest noise in his dark bedroom. Quickly scampering into his bed, Naruto covered his whole body under a blanket, letting exhaustion and sleep took over.
The next morning was worse. The red-stained blade on the floor affirmed the blond that last incident was not a nightmare. It confirmed him that he truly was a freak and different from others. He kept his discovery a secret from Iruka-sensei and Sandaime, not wanting it to ruin his good relationship with the old man, as contributed by his dad's heroism and friendship before. However, the intense fear, shown in his fright of himself, and other negative emotions had rooted more deeply inside his heart every year. They constantly overwhelmed his soul and mind, even beyond, to the point of his existence. Pain. Loneliness. Despair. Fear. And the newest one: Misery. They perfectly depict how he exists, how so perfectly defines his own existence.
Despite the clear sky and cool weather, and nature awakened with life from her cold slumber, with occasional gentle breeze giving warm sensation, tingling senses with burst of energy which drew high-pitched laughter and playful noises, that completely overwhelmed one famous playground in Konoha, a young blond stared longingly at the merry commotion, blue eyes clouded with loneliness. Despite the playground's large land size, perhaps the largest in the city, and all the fun it could offer with its squeaky swings, long slides, challenging bars, and windy holes, the lonely boy could only watch from the corner, sitting on the lone swing and rocking it half-heartedly. Every time a warm breeze greeted the spot, the boy gripped the swing bars hardly, trying to embrace its whole warmth and hoped the wind carried away his deep and beyond coldness – his pain, his loneliness, his despair, his fear, his misery – his injustice.
Naruto then stared at the blue sky, slowly losing himself in its vast blue, dotted with white, which moved naturally with the wind. Part of his heart wished the huge pretty color above could fill his mind and replace all the dull colors, and hoped the soothing wind caress uproot all the terror in his poor heart. He let himself imagine, the sky as the canvas, all the what-ifs. 'What if Mom and Dad still lives?' He pictured his dad as himself but a lot taller (yes with whiskery marks on the cheeks), because old man told him he looked like Dad, and mom as a young, pretty girl similar to the girl at Ichiraku's. He pictured his coming home was greeted by a delicious smell of Mom's best ramen and a loving embrace in Dad's arms. As Naruto played his imaginary scenes of his parent alive and his life normal, he could not help but feel hollow and more helpless, realizing these were not real. 'Why must they die?' The Third claimed they died a noble death, especially his dad, but Naruto in that moment could not help but snidely noted mentally 'Sure noble, but few actually acknowledge his heroic feats, huh?' An image of his taller self flashing with powerful chakra then popped up, and Naruto somehow still felt proud of his dad as a hero ninja. Instantly at that moment, he recalled back the Third's warm expression which never failed to show up as he told stories of the hero and pictured how the Third expressed respect and admiration to his heroic dad. 'Heh, at least Dad is acknowledged by great people, by that old great Sandaime.' Lost in awe and feeling proud of his taller-self-as-dad vision, his mind wandered and somehow ended up with a thought 'yeah, I want to be like you….just watch me, Dad…. I'll be a great ninja like you someday'
In that instant moment, his blue, determined eyes widened remarkably at the beauty sight above him, one warm memory somehow flickers in his mind, replacing the hero sight and playing it like a movie. Same cloudless sky. Leaves rustling from the breeze. Third Hokage's crinkled eyes and smile. Fond. And Proud.
"You make it to the academy
I am so proud of you, Naruto
I'm sure you will be a great ninja someday"
A sweet realization hit him, and boy, he felt foolish and silly for not noticing it earlier. That old geezer's warm expression – fond eyes, proud smiles – sometimes were directed to Naruto. Scratch that. To be more exact, they were often directed to him. The boy could instantly recognize the Sandaime's fond face in some of his sweet memories shared with the old man. One was where the old man ruffled his blond hair and smiled proudly, "You're just like your father". Another was where Sandaime comforted him because of his ninjutsu failure with inspirational stories, including his dad's of course, Naruto could easily read his aged eyes bored into the blond's and genuinely believed that the boy would be like one in those stories, yes genuinely believed Naruto would have his own heroic stories which inspired other ninjas. Memories after memories played vividly in his vision as the blond did not fail to spot the caring expression, which surprised him for good and filled his heart with indescribable emotion.
A spark ignited deep inside the boy's heart – dream, a hope. It spread warmth to every fiber and tissue in his body like blood pumped throughout. From the deepest part of his heart desire – "...a great ninja..." – and even beyond as shown in his wide, boyish, and charming grin – "...someday…" – and in his determined, vivid blue orbs burning with newfound passion, the blond swung his body and proudly landed on his two feet while a breeze, stronger this time, swayed his blond hair and loose T-shirt. Naruto embraced it briefly and ran against it with strong fervor – "… just like you…"
"…Dad…"
"…And even much better. I will show you."
Life is not fair. But not anymore to the boy. He would make it fair. He had it in his heart.
Hope you enjoy the story. Reviews will be appreciated.