We all know the tale of a blonde boy Naruto Uzumaki, destined for something great, working his way from the bottom to where he achieved his dreams of becoming Hokage. From the beginning of the story to the end.
But questions remained if what if things happened differently? How would Naruto grow and develop? The Naruto movie: Road to Ninja, answered that question for us in the form of alternative parallel universes. In those universes, events don't quite happen in that universe as one is led to believe. Those events are answered in two possibilities: They either happened at a later due time or never happened at all. In this universe, Naruto, or as he was named in this universe: Menma Uzumaki, grows up with parents, vastly different from the orphaned Naruto Uzumaki.
But what if there were changes to that main story that would affect it? What if few events that partook happened differently? What if there were possibilities that led to the same conclusion? What if Naruto had a familial figure in his life? Would he still understand other's pain? Would Naruto Uzumaki understand other people as a result? What would happen to any other person involved in said events?
This is a story from beginning to end, as Naruto Uzumaki takes and makes many different decisions, affecting those others close and around him, to ultimately reach his dreams and goals.
Legends.
Many ascribed them to be tales. Like a mythical dragon that spewed flames or even a god, the latter of which believed by some to exist in some form, the other few that don't place their faith in an entity or god above. After all, how could they? Repeated over and over, sung by many who twisted the tale of legend to their own desire or preconceived notion that the legend was much more than they appear. It was a fairy tale as any. A story only to be told to a child, whose simple mind could not comprehend truths or lies, could not discern from either, just added to their own beliefs and then spread it to their children once they reached adulthood. Their perceptions then matched their children, and the cycled continued. At the end of it all, legends were a mix and combinations of truths and lies, leaving many to form their own beliefs,
But for many in this world, there was one legend many had an agreed upon. From the very beginning, where a world of ninjas waged battles of titanic scales, there was an ancestor; from were all ninjas descended from, from where they cast techniques of elements: fire, water, wind, earth, lightning. There was a being that many regarded as the progenitor of them all:
The Sage of Six Paths.
None had seen his face, leaving those to form their own beliefs on the Sage of Six Paths's appearance. Many did not know his own techniques, but he was considered the creator by many and thus many techniques have gone back to him, even for those who created their own techniques, they would never have been written on scrolls and books for others to understand and perform, and even by said creators, all could be attributed back to him on some level. These techniques were called Jutsu.
As later would be known, the Jutsus would fall into three categories, titled and named: Ninjutsu, Taijutsu, and Genjutsu.
But that wasn't what many consider the legend of the Sage of Six Paths to be the progenitor of. No. They considered the source of energy, one that powered their techniques, for their techniques would never have unleashed, to have all gone back to him, for he had created the energy and was thus the first individual to ever use said energy:
Chakra.
Chakra powered Jutsus. And jutsus fell into the three categories, Ninjutsu, Genjutsu, and Taijutsu, that humanity would classify. It was a simple, repeatable process any individual would have knowledge of due to the very simplicity of it.
But it would not have happened. The Sage of Six Paths, who was the first being to harness the Chakra energies within himself, would not have given any of humanity the precious chakra. Humanity would have not grown any further had there not been children of his own, who would then have children of their own, and then the world of ninjas would have been shaped. For this, he had two sons: Ashura and Indra.
Both inherited their father's chakra and used his chakra to shape their own visions, the two desired above all to make their father proud. War had torn homes, destroyed lives, and shaped the world into a bitter dark setting of neverending violence and hatred. With this, both sons of the Sage resolved to find peace through any possible means and end the violence of war, grown and molded by the horrors of them.
Ashura, the younger brother, wanted to find peace through means of understanding and love. He believed that if humanity as a whole would take time, time to understand others that they considered enemies, then it would eventually lead to peace. Meeting many individuals, traveling to new distant worlds, he formed friendships and close bonds with many of them.
Indra, the older brother however, did not brush off the answer of his brother's, but in his view, he saw that coercion through power and domination would lead the road to peace. By whatever means necessary in order to end opposition, one must have greater power than the other, in order to achieve peace. Like his brother, he traveled to many distant worlds, forming a conclusion of his own.
The Ninshu, the Sage's pacifistic religion and the predecessor of the Ninjutsu, was created by the Sage in order to understand and use the life energy known as chakra to lead the world into an era of peace. Both Ashura and Indra desired to become their father's successor to the Ninshu, as his time would draw someday near, and both desired to carry on the peace to the world all three sought and for the sons, their father's work.
While both young men ultimately desired such a title and leader, both could not have it. The Sage could only choose one, one of the two men, who could carry on his beliefs of peace. The Sage ultimately chose Ashura after taking consideration of both men's beliefs. Ashura's love and belief aligned and mirrored his view of the world and the meaning to achieve peace.
Indra was outraged and jealous, however. Through seeing the world in his own eyes to form his ideal version of peace, he believed and felt that his younger brother, Ashura had stolen his birthright to the Ninshu. Ashura had taken what he wanted above all else. Initially, he accepted his younger brother as the successor to lead the Ninshu, hiding his resentment and anger, but loving the two. However, the man shortly after fell to his deep-buried resentment. His once love for both his family turned into hate, and he violently sought to oppose the two.
And so he did. During a night of celebration for Ashura as the successor to the Ninshu, where drinks, food, and merriment settled the unaware village, Indra attacked the celebration. Using his father's chakra, the inherited life energy that gave humanity the will to live, he used a technique, forming a construct of pure energy to overwhelm and eventually destroy his brother and father. Ashura pleaded for his brother, begged for him to see reason, in an attempt to convince him and in his hope that his brother was still behind the monster he became, begging for help, begging to be saved. But his brother could not be convinced, unable to be swayed, Ashura was forced to use his own father's life energy given to him to combat his brother's to defend himself and his loved ones.
Realizing that Ashura could not match his brother's might, for Indra was far more skilled in combat than Ashura, The Sage ordered the entire village's denizens to assist in the battle between brothers. He himself poured whatever available energies to assist in his son. Ashura, the Sage, and the combined might of the village prevailed, severely wounding the fallen brother. Ashura, refusing to kill the monster that had once been his loving brother and in a belief that there was still good within him, pleaded one last time. Indra, consumed entirely by pure rage, unable to accept his younger brother as the successor to their father's religion or Ashura's vision of peace, screamed his undying hatred for the village, his father, and his younger brother. He fled, never to be seen by Ashura again.
For years that came after, Indra formed his own village, with likeminded individuals. With Ashura's village and Ninshu remaining strong, Indra knew it was foolish to wage battle against his younger brother's superior force. He and his forces remained in hiding, planning to one day overthrow Ashura's rule and take the role of the successor of Ninshu himself forcibly, but was never able to. Eventually, he gave up this desire. Once in his youth, he had sought such a title. The time now, he no longer cared. It formed into a new dream of his: To crush his father's Ninshu and destroy it.
At around this time, the Sage's time in the world of living would soon come to an end, with Indra leaving parting words for his bedridden father that he and Ashura's foolish belief to bring about peace would end in more wars. They would never understand beyond their simple-minded notions because they never saw what he saw in other worlds; the truth they refused to acknowledge because of their narrow-minded views, what he saw to ultimately bring about peace. He would crush the Ninshu belief and its foundations, and prove to them what they failed and refused to acknowledge in order to bring peace.
The Sage looked at his former son's words, leaving his own words, but it only served to anger Indra further and further. Enraging the fallen boy, the boy lashed out, attacking his father in a blind furious rage and killing him. At the moment, Ashura and his forces arrived, sensing the intruder and traitor's chakra. Falling to his knees in agony, he poured grief and sorrow over his father's death, crying out. Indra, now caught, and the momentary rush of adrenaline and hatred coursing over him, deep within him he felt a sense of guilt within him, realization at what he committed. But when Ashura's eyes met him, Indra saw that they contained the barest amount of hatred for his elder brother.
Ashura, now in his own fury of madness, demanded his forces to attack and kill his former brother outright, and Indra fled once more and escaped, the construct of his brother nearly had killed him if he had not been quick and had shock not overtaken him for a brief moment. With his brother gone, Ashura's own realization came to his own actions. Snapping out of his own fury and ashamed of having nearly abandoned and discarded all of his and his father's beliefs, having nearly given in to the hatred that consumed his brother because of their father's death at the hands of his brother, he only once again vowed to continue his belief of peace, the hope of his that he and his brother would one day make amends and find a peaceful resolution.
And such, both brothers married, having their own children who would have their own children that would carry out their ideals. Ashura and Indra, the rift that formed between them never completely healing, would join their father in death, passing down their legacy to their children until centuries passed, the ninjas of clans embodying the ideals of both brothers as war would break out between them and those around them.