Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or any of the works that have inspired this story.
A/N: Female Naruto is taken by Jiraya early on a trip to discover the world. She learnt the price of anger and decided to become a figure of protection, love and peace.
I'm trying to write something else than negative driven stories, because I'm trying to reform myself, to become a person driven by good emotions rather than anger, bitterness and powerlessness. I want to try and write a story in which another way than violence is possible, a story some philosophers like the Dalai Lama could appreciate, because my ultimate goal is to bring peace to the world, and until now I've mostly brought my negative emotions as well as misanthropy rather than love, selflessness and altruism.
I have a hard time trusting people and getting real, long time friends, so I want to become a better version of myself, and my imagination is the first step towards changing myself. If I can write a story in a violent world in which the main character doesn't have to be violent themselves to win, then maybe I can better myself.
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Chapter 1
Naruto was five years old when her situation as a host to the Nine Tailed Fox leaked to the public. Of course, it had to happen on her birthday, which was also the commemoration of the attack of the Kyuubi. People suddenly got someone to use as a scapegoat. All these ninjas who had lost their family, their friends, their lover, started to see red. A group of ninjas looked for the little girl and chased her around the village.
ANBU shinobi tried to arrest them, but the angry ninjas were too numerous. Some of them even resorted to violence against the Hokage's law enforcers, blinded by their rage at learning the Hokage had kept this information from them for five years.
Naruto was cornered in a back alley of a poor district, ANBU trying to keep the angry crowd of ninjas away from the five year old girl who had done nothing bad. Someone suddenly snapped and attacked the ANBU in front of them with a bladed weapon, piercing them through the forearm. That was the moment when the violence exploded.
The guards started to fight for their own lives, severely outnumbered. Blood was splattered everywhere. When the Hokage's forces had been dealt with, the mad crowd rushed towards the child. The first ones to reach her kicked her, punched her, lashing out their five years of bottled emotions.
Soon enough, they realized the kid wasn't moving anymore. They stopped their tantrum and started to think about what had just happened. That's when the old Hokage arrived to the scene in his battle outfit. His armor and helm made him look like a samurai.
"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?" he shouted at the crowd. "THIS FIVE YEAR OLD CHILD HAS SAVED THE WHOLE VILLAGE FROM THE DESTRUCTION THAT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED IF THERE WAS NO ONE TO CONTAIN THE KYUUBI, AND YOU KILLED HER? WERE YOU TRYING TO RELEASE THE FOX IN ORDER FOR IT TO SEND YOU JOIN YOUR LOST ONES? IF YOU WANTED TO DIE, YOU SHOULD RATHER HAVE COMMITTED SUICIDE SO THAT IT WOULDN'T BRING THE WHOLE VILLAGE DOWN WITH YOUR STUPID SELVES!"
Suddenly, whereas he thought the child to be dead, he heard her move behind him. He turned towards her and saw her standing up all bruised. She didn't look like she was alive. She looked like an undead rising to get revenge on the ones who had killed it more than a human. She moved slowly and as if she wasn't conscious, like a fighter who kept moving even though they were knocked out.
And suddenly it began. The chaotic, monstrous, consuming chakra of the Fox got released. It started slowly, the girl's skin being ripped apart. Under the skin, dark red chakra formed a half human half fox chimera. Six tails out of nine appeared from its lower back. The amount of chakra emanating from the creature in front of the Hokage was absolutely terrifying him. The crowd was no just terrified, it was paralyzed, eyes locked into the white, round, horrific eyes of the creature in front of them.
And it moved. Hiruzen snapped out of his stupor and fear too slowly. In one second, the crowd had become a pool of blood, organs and bits of corpses. The partly unleashed Kyuubi screamed in a horrific way, deploying even more chakra and putting the whole district under an intense pressure. It felt like the gravity had tripled.
The Hokage moved, summoning his friend Enma, the monkey king, to assist him in this dangerous fight. The sixty-two year old shinobi attacked the Fox in order to force it back into the child's body, since it appeared it wasn't completely released, meaning Naruto was still alive somehow. But with each powerful strike from Sarutobi Hiruzen armed with his monkey staff, the creature only got angrier and seemed to draw more power.
At some point, a seventh tail appeared, and a third of Konoha was destroyed when the power of the seventh tail was released in a shock wave. The old man was propelled against a far away building he crashed against and he lost consciousness.
That's when a miracle happened. A giant toad appeared and clashed against the Kyuubi in a hand struggle while a big white haired man applied five glowing fingers on the place where the stomach should be located on the now much bigger chimera.
The feeling of gravity increase disappeared progressively as the Bijuu returned to its containment seal and the body reverted to the five year old girl. She was very hurt, her skin completely burnt by the transformation.
Jiraya caught her with an immense tenderness he didn't know he was capable of and he jumped on Gamabunta, the giant toad.
"Please take us to the slug's place, Gamabunta," asked the big man.
The three of them disappeared in a puff of smoke.
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"What happened, Jiraya? Why did you ask Katsuyu to reverse summon me?" asked a very gorgeous blond woman with two lose short ponytails in a gray kimono underneath a green haori, with dark blue belt and pants and black sandals laced up to the ankles.
"I need your help. Something happened in Konoha and the Kyuubi was partially released. When I arrived, it had seven tails out. A third of Konoha has been destroyed and the old man has been knocked out. I've barely been able to seal it back into Naruto but she's barely clinging to life by a hair!"
"Okay, Katsuyu! I'll need your help! We have an innocent child to save!"
"Yes, Lady Tsunade!" answered the giant slug with blue stripes running along its body.
Jiraya couldn't count how much time it took before they finally stopped the healing process and Tsunade crashed on the ground.
"What happened? Why did she collapse?" he asked to the slug.
"Naruto-san has immense chakra reserves and they were nearly empty. Tsunade used her remaining chakra to ensure she would not die of chakra exhaustion. She needs to rest now to recover her own reserves. She has barely been able to give the child enough chakra to survive until Naruto regenerates her own reserves through rest and eating."
"So Tsunade used a high amount of chakra to heal Naruto and then she offered her her remaining chakra? Will she survive?"
"She has survived much more dangerous situations, you should know it better than anyone, Jiraya-sama", answered the slug.
"She has been off-duty for around twenty-five years now, I didn't expect her to keep herself in such shape…"
"Do not worry, small one, she will be fine."
Jiraya laid Naruto and Tsunade in a way that their heads would rest on his thighs as he sat cross-legged between them, entering a meditative state.
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Tsunade woke up slowly. She felt a hand caressing her hair and for a moment she thought she was resting on Dan's leg. Then everything came back in her mind and she remembered where she was and with whom. She stood up instantly and turned around to face Jiraya with an accusing look and an index pointed at him, but he opened an eye peacefully and motioned for her to keep quiet while looking towards Naruto sleeping on his other leg.
Tsunade managed to calm herself and fell in endearment at the look of the child. It reminded her of the time when she had to stay with Shizune for the girl to sleep without crying. Looking at her former teammate acting like a mother hen, she couldn't keep herself from chuckling behind her hand at this unbelievable sight.
"Who could guess one day I would see you act like a mother hen, Jiraya-chan?" she mocked him.
"I didn't think I'd say that one day, but I'm gonna take her alongside me. Konoha has proven to be unsafe for her. I don't want her father to come back from the dead to kill me because I neglected his child. Well, I won't replace her parents, but if I can help her grow into a good person in a safe environment, I think my mission will be cleared."
"Oh, you want to play the card of the responsible parental figure now?"
"Not even in your wettest dreams. I know you'd tease me for the rest of my life if I did. And I don't need to play the kind daddy to get all the ladies I want."
"Sure, keep your illusory sentimental life consisting in spying on women baths and paying escorts to relieve your sexual stress. I bet it helped you a lot in becoming a role model and a flawless person. I know you've been in love with me from the moment we were put in the same team. No need to play strong around me."
"Our little affair thirty years ago was enough for me."
"Please, we were so drunk you couldn't even remember we had done it. I had to tell you what had happened that night because you had a blackout."
"Okay, I don't even know for sure what happened even now," replied the white haired ninja. "But I'm not after you anymore…"
"Tell that to someone else. You've never had any woman in your life. It means you've never turned the page and let another woman into your heart. What a waste, you've got such a big one…"
"Don't try to charm me with your compliments, I know you've never liked me much."
"In fact I have, but you were unable to see it. Then Dan came into my life and I turned away from your blindness. If only you had been less obsessed with peeping, we could have been married."
"You don't mean it."
"I do. You were just so self-absorbed that you completely missed me, and then I had to deal with Dan's death…"
"I've never been there to comfort you after that. I'm sorry."
"What would it have changed? I'd have pushed you away anyway. But I'm here now."
"Want a hug?"
"I shouldn't, knowing you, but I'll let you just once."
"C'mere, don't be shy princess."
"Sure Mr Frog. Do you know the tale of the Princess and the Frog?"
"Yeah, so what?"
"The princess kisses the frog and he turns into a prince charming. I wonder if you can turn into a prince or if you're just a gross toad."
"Coming from an alcoholic slug, it's not so bad. Talk of a princess."
"Whatever, maybe we're just two ugly old people looking for a lost soul…"
"Maybe you're smarter than you seem to be."
"Says the man who looks stupid half of the time while peeping at underage girls."
"Well, with your appearance you could be counted as underage for an old fart like me, how does it appeal to you?"
"Maybe I prefer old frog farts to young bull charges…"
"But I'm not a livid old fart, I'm always on the move."
"I'm never staying in one place either, you know. I've got a gift in getting indebted."
"How could I not remember it? You're so addict to gambling that you bet your mansion in Konoha and lost it."
"I never said I had any luck at gambling."
"So, wanna tag along for a while?"
"Why not, Frog? I might discover a part of you that I had never suspected to exist, seeing how you were stroking our hair gently a few moments ago."
"Well, I can't be a perfect heart breaker at all times. I've gotta have some sensibility or I'd be hated by all women in the world."
"You're already hated by all the women in the world, at least all those who've caught you peeping on them."
"So you hate me too?"
"Right now, yes, thanks for reminding me how stupid you can be."
"Well, there's such a thin glass between hate and love, I may have a chance after all."
"Took you nearly thirty years to get a clue. I guess it's never too late to learn."
.
They had exited the Shikkotsu Forest, home to the slugs. They were walking with Shizune, who they had taken with them before leaving the place where the women were spending the week.
On their third day of travel, Naruto woke up and was completely lost, not recognizing her surroundings or the people who had taken her. She had been panicked, but Shizune and Tsunade had soon reassured her.
Now she was riding uncle Jiraya's shoulders and enjoying the view, finally finding something beautiful in her life. Her new acquaintances took turns answering her questions about everything and giving her lessons of language and culture.
What was supposed to be temporary became durable, and the group soon became a small family, Tsunade and Jiraya being pretty much Naruto's adoptive parents. They soon learned that she loved ramen more than anything else, so they learned to decline it into a thousand variations that they called ramen just so that she would accept to eat whatever they served her. Salad ramen, fish ramen, seafood ramen, pork ramen, beef ramen, chicken ramen, veggie ramen, honey ramen, chocolate ramen, nut ramen, fruit ramen…all dishes took the name ramen, otherwise she wouldn't eat them.
As she grew up, her blond hair started to become red. Soon, she became her mother's clone with whisker marks. She also behaved much like her mother did at the same age, hosting the same personality.
Jiraya and Tsunade had finally found each other on the way, and Shizune had come to appreciate the perverted man. All he needed was a good beating whenever he would spy on her in the baths, which Tsunade often joined because she couldn't tolerate her toad prince to look at anyone else than her.
Naruto learned how to manipulate chakra at an early age, six, when her language and reading skills had become good enough to start learning something else. She started learning jutsu useful to her survival, like the Needle Armor, a technique that let her grow her hair into a porcupine-like armor covering her whole body, the Mud Clone and Water Clone techniques, Substitution and the transformation jutsu from the academy.
When she was eight, her chakra control started being good enough to learn barrier techniques. She tried to learn the barrier techniques of her close ones, but it just wasn't fitting, so she ended up creating her own barrier jutsu that would fit her chakra control and reserves. She created a barrier technique she called Noodle Barrier, inspired by her favorite food, ramen. Being protected by a technique that looked like food was the best in the eight year old girl's mind. On top of that, rather than being a rigid wall, it was flexible, which was better against some types of attacks and could make them bounce back to the user.
At ten years old, she became able to use summoning techniques, at which point she learned Tsunade's slug summoning technique and signed the slug contract. She was naturally unfit for healing ninjutsu, so she wanted to have an alternative way to heal people. She had learnt about her passenger and wanted to be able to heal the people she could involuntarily injure. Tsunade had told her about her will to put a medic in any team and she wanted to be able to do something about it.
Jiraya's philosophy of peace had reached to Naruto, who had decided to never hurt someone – again – unless there was really no other way. She wanted to protect people and bring peace without drawing out weapons. That's another reason why she preferred the slug contract over the toad one.
She also created a more solid barrier technique, the Ramen Bowl, which was an earth technique inspired by Doton: Earth Wall. It was a bowl-shaped very resilient dome. She could even make a combination jutsu, the Double Layered Noodle Ramen Bowl, which consisted in an external Noodle Barrier, a middle layer of Ramen Bowl and an internal layer of Noodle Barrier. It could even absorb Tsunade's punches when she did a mischief or Jiraya's Rasengan when he tested the effectiveness of her techniques. The Rasengan even ended up making the Noodle Barrier inextricable and Jiraya got his forearm stuck in the barrier until Naruto decided that the joke had lasted long enough. The old man had missed the rush hour of women baths, to his family's great enjoyment.
When she finally reached the age to become a genin, Naruto told Jiraya and Tsunade that she didn't want to become a ninja, because it would force her to do despicable things like killing people or interrogating them. She wanted to live a pacifist life and to bring hope for world peace through kindness, protection and safety rather than through war or feeble peace treaties that could break anytime, as the first three world wars had proved to be true.
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A/N: I don't know how I'll develop this story, it's hard to make a story of a pacifist person in a violent world. I think I'll have to do it through Naruto's family rather than through anything else, it will be more of a road trip with miracles and bringing hope everywhere rather than through institutions. No Hokage Naruto.
This Naruto has an actual reason to be a ball of energy and happiness, because she's grown with a family and she's been loved. Unlike the original Naruto who should have been pretty much like Nagato or Sasuke with Itachi's coldness and who should have had a hard time trusting anyone.
