A/N: As this is Naruto, this chapter took a rather emotion filled turn. Is that really surprising?

Published: 11/13/2017

Warnings: Twisted mental child abuse

Chapter 2

The Family

The three of them were sprawled out in the forest floor. Or, rather, Naruto was, sitting cross legged as his teammates explained the situation to him yet again.

"So, lemme get this straight," Naruto stated for what felt the hundredth time, "that creepy snake bitch was actually a creepy snake man," nod, "and he/she put a weird seal on my stomach," nod, "which unleashed some sort of glowy guardian guy who says he's related to me," reluctant nod, "who then proceeded to beat the shit out of Orochimaru before running off again?" Naruto concluded.

His teammates nodded once more. Sasuke looked annoyed. Sakura, normally, would be emanating the exact same emotion if it wasn't for the way her eyes darted back in forth in evident fear.

Orochimaru had terrified her, and even though he had evidently marched off and had decided to leave them alone for the time being, he wasn't the only danger in this damned forest.

Naruto stared at them for several seconds before giving a tense nod.

"Huh. Alright. The pair of you can go fuck yourselves." Naruto concluded, a wide smile adorning his lips as he leapt to his feet. Despite the grin currently stretched across the tan boy's face, it didn't reach his eyes. No. Instead, they showed his true emotions.

Naruto had the satisfaction of seeing the great and mighty Sasuke Uchiha flinch back in momentary shock.

Surprisingly, Sakura was the first to react.

"Wait- what?! Naruto, we're only telling you the truth!"

"No, what the pair of you are doing is feeding some random bullshit down my throat!" Naruto spat out in rage. He couldn't believe the crap his teammates, if they could be called that, were trying to pull. "I thought three three of us were slowly starting to become friends, but… I guess that was just me, huh!?" Naruto gave such a bitter and twisted laugh that Sakura couldn't help but shudder.

"How could you guys? How could you, Sasuke?" Naruto elected to ignore his pink haired crush. He could deal with her later. Instead, he fixed the Sharingan weirder with a withering glare and unleashed a torrent of killing intent that made Orochimaru's look tame. Sasuke almost vomited then and there. "You, of all people, know what it's like to be completely alone! To not have any family left, yet- yet- fuck you guys, I'm out!"

With that dramatic statement, Naruto Uzumaki turned and departed with the speed of a flying cheetah.

Sasuke and Sakura stood frozen for several seconds.

"Damn it! That useless deadlast! Naruto, wait!"

With that, Sasuke leapt after the other, leaving Sakura behind.

"Wait- Sasuke-kun! Don't leave me behind!"

With that, she chased after him.

Stupid, stupid teammates.

Dammit, dammit, dammit!

Naruto was not crying. He wasn't. He was a Shinobi now. A real one. And, real Shinobi did not cry!

It was just…

How could they?

Naruto sniffed slightly, and he did not totally wipe at his eyes.

Naruto had never had a family. He had always dreamed of having one, though. He had always dreamed of finding his mom, of his dad, or some distant cousin. Anyone, anywhere. It didn't matter.

He had always… Always wanted a family.

The matron at the orphanage had caught on rather early, noticing the looks Naruto would shoot other children when they were either adopted or when some long lost relative arrived out of the aether and adopted them without a thought.

She had noticed, but she hasn't said anything. No. She'd done something far crueler.

Over the next few months, time and time again, several people would show up out of the blue and claim to be related to Naruto. He had ecstatic. Who wouldn't be?

He had family out there!

He had relatives!

People that would love him, no matter what the villagers said or did because that was what family did, right?

Except…

It was…

Always…

A lie.

Somehow, at the last second, every single time, they would suddenly come to the realization that no, they weren't related to Naruto in any way shape or form and even if they were, who'd want a demon brat like him?

Naruto hadn't caught on. Not at first. Not until he saw the Matron, eyes lit with unholy glee, stifling a laugh as tears had fallen down his face. Once she had caught sight of him looking, she couldn't contain it any longer and had burst into wide heaving cackles, tears falling from her eyes from the twisted mirth.

"Stupid monster. Who could love a thing like you? Even if you had any family to call your own, they would see you for what you are: an abomination!"

Naruto didn't have a family. He knew that perfectly well now. He had accepted it. He was content with that. So what if he didn't have a family? He would make one, Naruto had decided. He would make one from friends and comrades and allies and he would build, because this loneliness… This drowning solitude was not something he would wish upon his worse enemy, not even that bitch of a Matron.

However, what he hadn't expected was for his teammates to continue that woman's twisted legacy.

It hurt.

Their lies really hurt.

Making him think he had a family?

How dare they? How dare they give him that kind of hope? That kind of hope… It was nothing but lies, and just thinking about it boiled his blood.

In the back of his head, Naruto remembered.

He remembered a young man, with blue eyes and brown hair and khaki hakama. He remembered a blue haired woman, holding him close. He remembered an old man, dark haired and eyes smiling kindly, his face scared.

He remembered, and he suppressed.

He didn't want to remember. Maybe it made him a coward, but he'd much rather forget.

The idiot was fast. Sasuke would give Naruto that. Come to think of it, it wasn't that shocking that Naruto was fast.

Naruto was well known for performing wild pranks all over the village then evading capture for hours on end. Sasuke had always wondered how that could be possible when Naruto walked around masquerading in a bright orange jumpsuit that screamed come kill me now.

Now, he knew exactly how Naruto could evade them all with such ease.

Seriously. Iruka-sensei should have been promoted to Jounin for his skills in catching Naruto at all, period.

"Naruto! Wait!"

Sasuke dashed another corner. Crap. Where was he? A forest wasn't the best place to chase someone, and Naruto had gone through the extra effort, the little shit, of leaving little to no trail behind him.

At least he hadn't made an army of Shadow Clones and sent them off in every direction. Sasuke was lucky the idiot obviously wasn't thinking things through.

As he landed on another branch, one of the leaves above his head transformed, rapidly expanding.

"Wha-" Sasuke began.

Then, a sandal clad foot slammed into his face, sending him flying back as Naruto swung out of nowhere. Spinning through the air, Sasuke easily managed to land upright, his feet colliding with the bark of one of the trees and sticking to it rather easily. Sasuke wasn't the top of their class for nothing, after all.

Gazing up, he met Naruto's furious glare.

"The hell do you want, traitor?" Naruto spat out, looking like a trapped animal that was locked between the two most vital instincts of all, fight or flight.

Sasuke leapt and landed in the branch directly across from his teammate. He hadn't been aware that Naruto's skill with the henge was so advanced. To take a standard illusion like that and turn it into shape shifting into a leaf of all things was rather surprisingly, although Sasuke supposed it shouldn't be.

He'd seen it done once before, after all. However, the horror running in his veins at fighting Zabuza had taken the forefront back then.

"To talk. I wanna talk. Is that okay?"

Naruto twitched.

"Talk? What, so you can whisper more lies into my head? You know, I used to think we were kinda similar, but I was wrong. You're a complete piece of-"

"For fuck sakes, Naruto!" Sasuke exploded. The other reeled back, momentarily shocked by the Uchiha's uncharacteristic loss of calm. "Here you are, running off when you learn there might be someone alive related to you instead of listening! Do you have any idea how fucking jealous I am of you right now? I get it, alright! I'm alone too! I- They're- All of them..." Sasuke stuttered off.

Glowing red eyes. Blood. So much blood. Kaasan. Otousan. So many… So many.

Sasuke shuddered, body shaking.

"Yet you- You have a family, somewhere out there! Someone who's alive! And okay, maybe you're right! Maybe the man me and Sakura met was full of shit, but that doesn't mean you should take it out on us! We're suppose to be a team!" Sasuke screamed.

The shock faded into anger. Naruto's fists trembled with rage.

"You- you- you duck ass fucking little elitist snob! How dare you! You have no idea what it's like to get that kind of hope, time and one again, and then have it shattered over and over again! How dare you!"

Then, Naruto leapt and swung, a wild scream of fury leaving his lips as he went on the offensive.

When Sakura finally caught up to her teammates, she found several trees on fire, kunai and shuriken in every direction, and her idiot teammates snoring away as the both laid on the floor, blissfully unaware of the world around them.

Stupid, stupid teammates. Even Sasuke-kun, Sakura realized with a jolt. Why was she the only intelligent one here again? Boys.

~ Flashback no Justu ~

Terra sighed.

Why were they here in this village, again? The Master had something about 'reestablishing our ties to our former allies' or some shit like that, but Terra didn't see how that was possible.

The Uzumaki Clan had survived the massacre and Uzushiogakure of old had survived through one simple method that was unknown to the rest of the Shinobi world. It was a secret that the Uzumaki held close to their hearts, an ancient one that any true member of the clan would protect to their dying breath.

The existence of other worlds.

While, yes, their strength had been focused in Uzu, where the first Keyblade had been forged a millennia ago, the Masters of Old knew of other worlds, of other places, of the delicate balance between light and dark.

The Elemental Nations themselves existed in the Realm In Between, a unique location that honestly tended to draw more trouble than it was worth, in Terra's oh so humble opinion.

It had been decades since they had left. Before Terra's time, really. He wasn't sure why the Master wanted them here at all. This world… This place… It had killed so many of their kind.

There was only one place rumored worse, and Terra wasn't even sure if it existed or if it was just some random bullshit Zack had invented because Zack was Zack and he liked scaring the shit out of everyone.

Still, at least he didn't have to deal with politics. Aqua had oh so eloquently stated that there was no way in hell she was letting him anywhere near the Hokage, convinced completely and utterly that Terra would manage to start some sort of interdimensional incident if he did.

Ha! Yeah right!

Except, Aqua had been right on the mark as Terra stood guard before a quivering whiskered boy that couldn't have been older than five.

"What are you people doing? He's a child! What is wrong with you all!"

Terra had noticed the small blond cheerfully playing in the streets. The boy had attempted to play with the other children, and, at first, had done so with glee because kids are kids and they love to play and make friends with other kids.

Except, instead, as one several dozen adults had turned and screeched and screamed.

The poor boy was crouched in the corner, trembling with fear. There had been no threats of physical harm, not really. No. Instead, it had all been verbal but Terra knew better than to think that the lack of physical attack didn't make the abuse, and this was abuse, any better. If anything, mental abuse was probably worse.

The body heals.

The mind remembers.

Several people scoffed at him.

"Stupid boy, what is he doing?"

"Obviously a foreigner. Poor soul. We can't even tell him the truth."

"Only a fool wouldn't see it! That man must have been dropped on the head as a babe! Repeatably!"

"That wretched Uzumaki brat."

Terra froze.

Uzumaki?

They couldn't mean him, could they? Crap! Aqua was going to kill him! Then, Terra noticed that the words weren't actually aimed at him. No. No, instead, the woman that had spat them had her eyes firmly locked on the small blond Terra had been guarding.

Slowly, Terra turned.

The kid? The kid was… Seriously?

Terra took a step forward, and knelt down. The kid flinched. Outright flinched. Terra trembled as a shot of fiery anger coursed through him.

Perhaps he should reconsider his assumption on the no physical abuse.

"What's your name, kid?"

Blue eyes, so much like his own, gazed up at him. The the sea and like the skies and with a hint of purple.

"I- my name is Naruto Uzumaki, -ttebeyo, and I will be Hokage! I'll be the greatest ninja ever, and don't you forget it!"

The villagers had the audacity to laugh.

Terra resisted the urge to attack. Keyblade wielders are not to abuse their power, after all.

Uzumaki.

This kid was an Uzumaki, just like Terra and like Aqua.

Terra smiled.

"Hi, Naruto. My name is Terra. I'm your cousin. Pleased to meet you."

A/N: Thoughts? Responses? Suggestions? Criticisms? Feel free to leave a review :)