Naruto Uzumaki wasn't a very popular boy.
Well, that was putting it lightly in his eyes.
People hated him.
They sneered and looked at him with disgust whenever he walked by.
He was chased away from most shops he tried to enter, and when he could enter a shop they made him pay double the price for things.
"Taxes" they called it.
It was all bullshit, he knew that.
He may not be the smartest of kids, but he wasn't an idiot.
But if it got him the food he needed to live, then he wouldn't mind.
He would endure if it meant he could live one more day., in the village that he called 'Home'.
'Home…' Naruto thought.
The word was meaningless to him, after all Home wasn't just a place, it was the people that cared for you and made your life warmer by being there for you.
Naruto had nobody.
He was alone.
In the village with thousands of people, he was the only one who had absolutely nobody.
Orphans at least had the Matron of where they lived, and even without that, they had each other.
Naruto, even before he was kicked out of the orphanage he had lived in, had nobody.
The children would call him Demon and throw things at him.
The Matron would ignore him, purposefully give him less food, and give him a punishment for the most stupid of things, while letting the kids bully and berate him.
Naruto sighed as he looked up at the night sky.
The sky was clear, not a cloud in sight, and the ocean of stars and colors was in full view.
Naruto plopped himself onto the roof of his house, a place he often came to get away from the co stand hate filled stares from people and just relax on nights like this.
I looked through the window behind him and at the clock that sat next to his bed on the small table.
It had just turned midnight.
And a new day had begun.
"I wish that this day is better than the last'' Naruto prayed to the sky, hoping that if someone was listening, that they would answer him, even just once.
He knew people, Shinobi at the very least, often prayed to someone called The Sage, a person who was all powerful and was acclaimed to be the very first of the Shinobi.
But he didn't really think much of it.
If he was so great, why were there still people that suffered?
Why did he have to live a life filled with cold emptiness, while most people had somewhere warm to go, where they had people that cared for them.
Naruto sighed and closed his eyes, the sound of the wind whistling in his ears, and people finishing up their day, some even just starting it.
The sounds were peaceful, it calmed him to hear them and to be in darkness, to be still and not have to run from angry shopkeepers.
He stayed there for a few hours.
Listening and being calm.
But it was getting late, so he crawled back through the window and into his house.
He didn't bother to get changed out of his clothes, he simply plopped into his bed and wrapped up in his thin blanket.
Naruto laid there, and eventually fell asleep.
His last thought was repeating his wish.
One for a better day.
For a better life.
For a Family.
.
.
.
The next day came, and Naruto wasn't happy.
Today was already shaping up to be a bad one.
He forgot to turn off his alarm, and it had woken him up before he usually would have on Sunday's.
Sunday's were his day off from everything, he would stay inside and eat ramen while looking out the window, slowly watching the sky change from light blue, to Orange, to a Deep midnight.
He wasn't one for being up early, but when he was, he was up.
No going back to sleep.
As Naruto hopped out of the shower and dried himself, putting on a plain white short with a red swirl on his back and a pair of black shorts, he looked out his window.
It seemed that the clouds that had formed this morning were finally pouring out their water, as a downpour of rain hammered onto the roof, making an intense muffled pitter-patter sound.
Naruto liked that sound, it meant he could go out today and not be disturbed while he walked around the village, as most people wouldn't be caught out in this weather.
And so, Naruto decided that today was no day to be cooped up inside.
He slipped on a rain poncho and some water boots, and exited out his door.
.
.
.
It had been an hour since he had left.
And he was regretting doing so.
After he left, he had stopped and looked inside a shop window, but he was chased away nearly immediately.
So now he was hiding in an Alleyway, wishing he had just stayed inside.
So when the coast was clear, and he was free, he decided to go back home.
Or at least he tried.
He had run so fast and so far that he didn't know where he was.
'Damn my terrible sense of Directions' Naruto cursed as he walked through the rain.
But as he kept walking, he found something.
Carved and painted on the large gate of what seemed to be some kind of Clan Compound, was a red Swirl.
He looked at it, and images of the numerous shirts he had, came to mind.
It was the same red swirl mark as on his clothes,
He looked around.
There was nobody there.
No guards.
No people.
The houses around here seemed to all be boarded up and abandoned.
'Just where am I?' he thought as he walked closer to the gate.
Suddenly, as he pressed his hand against the wood of the gate, trying to push it open, he felt a heat pass through his hand.
Like something had exited him.
He pulled this hand back and looked at where he had placed his hand.
A glowing blue outline of his hand remained.
'is that chakra?' he thought.
He knew what chakra was, or at least he understood it was what allowed Shinobi to do all the cool things he did.
Hiruzen, the Elderly Hokage of the village who visited him from time to time, often told him about Shinobi.
Then there was a loud click noise.
And the gate opened slightly.
Naruto felt a strange feeling in the back of his head.
Like he was drawn to the otherside, like it was calling him.
He pushed open the gate slightly, walked through, and closed it behind him.
There was another loud click, presumably the gate locking.
'I'll deal with that when I need to' Naruto told himself as he looked around the large unkempt area.
The grass was overgrown.
The bushes were wild and unruly.
And what seemed to have been a garden, was now filled with weeds. And dead flowers,
The houses were all broken down and abandoned, not a single person seemed to be there.
And not a single person seemed to have been here for a long time.
But there was a large building, at the center of the Grounds.
One that he felt that same feeling towards.
Like it was calling him.
He walked up to the stairs of the large mansion-like building, and pushed open the door.
He found himself in a hallway.
Every door seemed to be locked, needing a key to open, except for one.
This door was large.
And when he touched it, another pulse of heat passed through him, and a phantom handprint appeared again.
The door clicked and rumbled a little, as it slid down into the ground and became a part of the floor.
Naruto was confused, but he still pushed on, that strange nagging feeling, like something was calling him, was still there.
He walked down the staircase, into what must have been a large Underground room.
The room was dark, as he walked towards the doorway that led into it, but as he put his foot past the threshold, the entire room burst into light.
Large orbs of light floated around the room, Illuminating the countless things that seem to be kept down here.
Paintings were lining the walls, Six large shelves filled to the brim Scrolls of different sizes and colors, and around the room large chests were scattered about.
He ignored them all.
And focuses on what was at the end of the room.
A door bigger than any he had seen.
It looked like it was made of metal, but it didn't have a door handle.
'Maybe…' Naruto looked down at his hand, and then to the door.
'Maybe it's locked with chakra, like the other ones?' he thought.
And as he pressed his hand against the door, he felt the feeling once more.
Heat passed through his body, up his arm, into his hand, and into the door.
There was silence.
For a few seconds nothing seemed to happen.
But then, with a flash of light the door disappeared.
Naruto looked around, but he couldn't see anything different.
'What was that?' he thought.
But he didn't have time to think as he looked inside the room the door was hiding.
It was mostly empty.
Except for three things.
A large scroll, one larger than any he had seen, sat on a stand in the center of the room.
And a small Knife, laid balanced on top of the Scroll.
And on the wall behind the scroll, was a sentence painted in red.
"What is power good for, if there is nobody to protect?"
This was it.
Naruto could feel it.
This scroll was what was calling him.
He stepped forward, and moved the knife off of the scroll. Placing it next to the stand on the floor.
He lifted the scroll up off the stand, and unrolled it on the floor.
The scroll was filled with words, some Naruto didn't know the meaning of, but he read them anyway.