**AN: I know, I know. I wasn't supposed to release this yet but my muse simply would let me write anything else. I have so many little snippets of a plot from varying points in canon and some pretty huge changes I want to make to the story. This chapter will be mostly about Naruto's childhood and some things that happened during his childhood. It will most definitely be different from canon and rather sad in my opinion but I hope you guys enjoy it anyway.
This AN is shorter than my other ones but that's good for you guys. Hope you guys Enjoy this new chapter.**
Tundra
It was a cold November evening in the village of Konohagakure located within the land of fire. The snowstorm that had swept through had been reduced to mere flurries but most people still stayed indoors to avoid the cold.
Well, not everyone could afford such a privilege. A single child could be seen strolling along the main path of the market district of Konoha. All the shops around him had their windows shut and lights off as the sounds of the people living above them could be distinctly heard amongst the crunching of snow underneath his bare feet.
This child was a boy with spiky blonde hair that had streaks of white going through it and icy blue eyes. He had a lightly tanned skin tone and 3 whisker-like birth marks adorned his slightly gaunt cheeks. He had on a muddied, faded white shirt with a red spiral symbol on both sides of the shirt and dirty dark green shorts. He had no shoes on his feet and was walking around in the snow barefoot. This child was the 7-year-old Naruto Uzumaki, the container of the nine tails(although he was not yet aware of this fact), and he was not dressed for the weather whatsoever.
Oddly enough, however, he didn't seem bothered in the slightest and continued to stare blankly at the ground as his feet carried him off somewhere.
After being evicted from the orphanage 1½ years ago, he had been living on the streets of the slums in the southwest sector of Konoha. It was during this time that Naruto came to fully understand what his place in the village was. Even amongst those in a similar situation as him, he is seen as subhuman and of less worth than the trash he had taken to eating from.
Naruto looked up from the snow, noticing a single building that had its lights on. It was a small building with what was perhaps a living space above the main building. It looked like a restaurant with very small curtains that would just be enough to cover the heads of anyone seated inside the restaurant along with 6 stools nailed down in front of a counter.
Naruto could smell the heavenly aroma coming from the restaurant and, without thinking about it, made his way toward it.
Tundra
Teuchi was not feeling very happy, because of the snowstorm that had hit, he had barely gotten any customers today.
Honestly, ever since the Kyuubi had attacked, the winters had been harsher than ever. The unfamiliar weather was difficult for everyone in Konoha.
Before he could continue his train of thought, he heard the curtains for the stand rustle.
Looking behind him, Teuchi saw a blonde, malnourished boy dressed in tattered clothes and wearing no shoes hesitantly make his way over to the counter.
'Well, speak of the devil and he shall appear' Teuchi thought
The temperature in the stand noticeably dropped once the boy entered as though the heater had suddenly stopped working well. Teuchi knew the cause of this phenomenon but, for the sake of the child, pretended to be unbothered.
"Hello there young one, what would you like to order today?"
The boy seemed to relax slightly at Teuchi's friendly tone.
Perhaps this day wasn't as bad as he had previously thought.
Tundra
Naruto walked down the streets of Konoha once more. Although this time, he looked decidedly happier.
The old man at the ramen stand was nice. He even let him eat as much as he wanted for free.
'Yeah, it's decided. Ramen is the second greatest food of all time.' Naruto thought.
With this epiphany, Naruto started running back toward the slums from which he came.
Tundra
Naruto rather liked his 'home'. Most would be confused as to how he could like living in the slums, and they would be right to be confused. He didn't like anything, other than ramen as he had recently discovered. It was more like, for a child living alone on the streets full of people who despised his existence, he had done rather well for himself.
His ability probably gave him a serious advantage though.
He had taken over an alleyway between 2 abandoned buildings deep in the slums. He had frozen the entire thing over and had crafted it to be more like a room than a dirty alleyway. He had his 'bed' at the very back. It was just a pile of tightly packed snow that he had covered with a large, almost clean piece sheet. He was the only one who would find it comfortable as anyone else who wasn't an experienced shinobi would die of hypothermia.
He had a cabinet in which he stored meat from animals he hunted in the forest and, most importantly, where he kept the single best thing that had ever been created on this horrible planet he lived on.
Popsicles
He had first seen them while walking through the main street of Konoha during the day. He had watched as a mother pulled her child away from him, scowling the whole time.
He barely even noticed it though, he was focused on what the child held in their hand.
It was a multicolored piece of ice on a stick. Naturally curious about anything that had to do with his element, he managed to find where he could get some and promptly robbed said store of every last popsicle in stock.
That was the greatest decision of his life.
He had a large fridge-like box that spanned the height of his 'room'. And it was chock full of popsicles. It had gotten so bad that many stores were hesitant to sell popsicles as they were making very few profits from them.
But they made Naruto's life at least marginally more bearable.
Although he had been awake for quite a bit now, Naruto took the rays of sunlight that managed to make it through the thick ice of his home as a sign he should get up.
Rolling to the side of his bed, Naruto swung his legs off the side of his bed and simply sat there and let them dangle for a bit. He didn't know why he continued to get up every day. There was no one waiting for him anywhere. He was one of the few humans who were well and truly alone.
Sighing, Naruto finally got off the bed and onto his feet. He was in the same tattered clothes he wore every day as he simply couldn't be bothered to steal something he didn't need.
Walking to the door, he swung it open before closing it behind him. It was rather late in the morning so most people were either in school, at their jobs, or on missions. He could see some people walking around, dreary looks on all their faces. Most people stuck to the alleyways in this part of town. It comforted Naruto a little. To see that he wasn't the only one experiencing the miseries of life. It might have made him a bad person for thinking that but Naruto didn't care.
He began to walk toward the southern part of Konoha's wall, planning to scale the wall so he could hunt in the forest. He was running low on meat at this point.
Tundra
It was nighttime again. Naruto would usually be asleep at this time of the night but he couldn't manage to fall asleep.
So, he had chosen to take a walk.
He was walking through the forest, alone, late at night.
Don't blame him, he's never been to school so he isn't very smart.
As he walks through the forest, his bare feet crunching lightly on the snow, he hears a distressed yelp and the sound of laughter from behind a bush a couple of meters away from him. The voices sounded young, probably about his age or a bit older.
It seems he wasn't the only stupid child tonight.
Curious, he walked up to the bush before peeking through to see what was going on.
There, he saw a girl on the ground surrounded by 3 older boys. The girl, about his age, had dark blue, almost purple, hair and had tears in her big, lavender eyes and her cheek sported a familiar pink bruise that Naruto knew was from either a slap or a punch to the face.
The older boys surrounded her, laughing at her as she cried in the snow.
Naruto usually wouldn't interfere in something like this. It wasn't his business and he knew that whoever he saved would most definitely never do the same for him. But for some unknown reason, Naruto had stepped out of the bush and called out the boys before he even knew what he was doing.
"Hey! Leave her alone!" He yelled
Their laughter halted as the boys turned to see who had yelled at them. Seeing a malnourished boy in ragged shirts and pants, the boy's laughter came back with a vengeance. However, this time, it was directed at Naruto.
"Hahahaha! look at him! He looks like he can barely even stand!" one of them jeered.
The boy's laughter continued for a few more moments until it died slowly.
"Haha, look kid, since it's you we're talking about, we're gonna teach you a lesson about respect. But, if you apologize now, we'll try not to hurt you too much." Another boy, Naruto guessed he was the group's leader, said.
At his words, Naruto snorted in amusement.
"Yeah, sure. If someone like you could beat me, I wouldn't still be alive." Naruto mocked
The leader's grin dropped and turned into a scowl.
"Alright, you asked for this."
With his words said, he charged at Naruto, his 2 friends trailing not too far behind him.
The girl on the ground cried out for them to stop but they completely ignored her words.
They should have listened to her.
The already cold temperature plummeted. The light mist that hung in the air turned to frost. The soft snow on the ground hardened into ice.
Before the charging boys could react, they were frozen, unable to move anything from the neck down.
Unable to move, the boys just managed to look down at the state of their bodies.
They were covered in a layer of frost. It looked thin enough for them to break rather easily but no matter how hard they tried, they were incapable of even moving a muscle below their neck.
As they looked back up at Naruto, the boys began to understand how large a mistake they had made.
The boy they once thought looked harmless, now looked powerful with his blue eyes glowing eerily, part of his face covered in frost, and his breath releasing a light blue mist.
Naruto began walking toward the frozen boys as they began to whimper, scared he was going to do more harm to them. Instead, he simply walked past them and reached a hand down to the now shocked girl they had been harassing before.
"You okay?" he asked casually
The girl could only look at the boy in shock for a bit before she realized he still had his hand out to help her.
"Y-yes. Thank you for h-helping me." she stuttered out as she took the offered hand and stood up.
Naruto was surprised. No one had thanked him for anything before. Even when he had once held out hope to gain the love of those around him, the people he helped usually ended up getting angry at him for whatever reason.
"Y-yeah, whatever," Naruto mumbled, looking away from the girl to hide his embarrassment.
The clearing descended into silence as Naruto and the girl looked anywhere but at each other.
Naruto sighed before looking back at the girl. With her head turned away from him, he noticed the bruise on her cheek.
"Hold on, you're hurt." Before the girl could respond, Naruto reached up and cupped a palm over her cheek. His hand was cold, bordering on uncomfortable, but it soothed the throbbing pain in her cheek.
Another minute passed before Naruto removed his hand. The bruise had gotten noticeably smaller and the swelling had significantly reduced.
"There, you'll be fine now. My name is Naruto, by the way. Naruto Uzumaki."
"I-I'm Hin-Hinata Hy-Hyuuga."
Tundra
It had been 2 years since Naruto's encounter with Hinata and things had changed, and quite a bit.
For one, the old man Hokage had finally gotten him off the streets. He had said he hadn't been aware of him being kicked out of the orphanage but Naruto wasn't sure he believed him.
He wasn't mean to him though so he guessed he hadn't.
After years of living like a ghost in the village, Naruto had become tired of it.
So he donned a persona. A persona of a loud, brash, idiot who loved playing pranks.
And he had started wearing this obnoxiously orange jumpsuit.
It was tough keeping up the mask but people around him had finally started acknowledging his existence, even if it was negative.
So he would keep it up.
As he strutted through the main square of the village, his head held high and a massive grin on his face, he ignored the glares people were sending at him.
Ever since he had changed, people had become more open with their disdain toward the blond.
But at least they looked at him instead of through him. That was good.
It was bad, but it was good.
As he turned into the rundown street that led to his rundown apartment, he glanced slightly behind him at the figure peeking around the corner.
It was Hinata.
Ever since that day in the forest, she had started following him around, trying to be sneaky.
But Naruto could sense her presence whenever she did.
While it was weird at first, Naruto noticed something different. She had absolutely no ill intent toward him.
Not an ounce.
He had never felt something like this before. With his ability to sense chakra and seemingly the emotions of people, he had never met anyone who held no hostility or weariness toward him.
Even the old man and his daughter at the ramen stand were still weary of him.
But Naruto felt nothing from Hinata.
It was scary at first as it seemed she had no emotions at all.
But then he realized that the only emotions he could sense were negative ones directed toward him.
And the fact that he felt nothing from her meant that she possessed no negative emotions toward him.
Not one.
Not even indifference.
And that made Naruto happy. Knowing that there was actually a person on the planet who seemed to care about him made something in Naruto's chest swell.
That was why, despite how odd it was, he had never made an effort to confront Hinata.
He feared that if he did that, she would start to exist within the range of his negative emotion sensing.
And the thought of losing something he could have only dreamed of having a few years ago was agonizing.
Tundra
Shit!
Shit! Shit! Shit!
Naruto hated himself at the moment.
As he ran through the maze of alleyways that made up the shadows of Konoha's market district, he curse at himself.
But he knew that no matter what happened, he would never actually regret his decision.
They had tried to harm her. They had pinned her to the wall in an alley and wanted to do…SOMETHING… to her.
Naruto didn't know what they had planned on doing, but the moment he saw the fear in Hinata's tear-filled eyes as she tried to yell over the hand covering her mouth, he moved.
And killed one of them.
Made a dagger from his ice and stabbed it straight through the throat of the one holding her.
And his 4 friends had begun chasing him to get their revenge.
4 chunin level shinobi, chasing him down, trying to get revenge for their deceased friend.
But they had left Hinata alone. And that made it all worth it. This wouldn't be the first time something like this had happened.
Not even close.
But the old man had asked him to not harm the villagers even if they harmed him and since he was the one who paid his rent and fed him, he would try to listen.
Naruto came to a stop in an alleyway as he knew he couldn't run any longer, he might have been able to output a lot of power but his stamina could only last for so long.
The 4 chunnin caught up to him in no time, only slightly out of breath from chasing the child.
And then it began.
Punches, kicks, stabs, slashes, burns, shocks.
They had even tried drowning him but he simply froze and shattered any water they used.
It hurt, but not that much. He had experienced things like this more times than he could count. He was used to the pain by now.
But she didn't know that.
He hadn't been aware of Hinata following after the Shinobi who had been chasing Naruto, trying to make sure he wasn't hurt too much.
But she was slower than the rest of them. It took her a while to catch up, following the trail of the massive amounts of chakra Naruto had been leaking as he ran with her Byakugan.
And she was mortified when she caught up.
She saw the 4 shinobi, people who were supposed to be protectors of the Hidden Leaf, brutalizing a child over half as young as they were.
And Naruto wasn't making a sound. He simply kept his head down, never looking up at the men torturing him.
She stood frozen in shock for a minute until she caught sight of the kunai going to stab Naruto through the heart.
He would die.
He was going to die!
Faster than she had ever moved before, Hinata shot forward to protect Naruto from the deadly blow.
By jumping in front of it.
The kunai meant for Naruto cut right into her chest and came out the other side with barely any resistance.
Everyone in the alley froze in shock as the Hyuuga Heiress was seemingly killed at the hands of the shinobi.
The man with the kunai backed away slowly, leaving the kunai lodged in the girl's chest, forcing her to drop to the ground.
Naruto could only look in shock as SHE fell to the ground, a kunai lodged in her heart.
Scrambling over to Hinata, he picked her head up off the floor and placed it in his lap. He scrambled about uselessly as his tears fell onto her face which looked calmer than he had ever seen it.
He pulled the knife out of her chest before freezing the wound shut. But it didn't seem to make anything better.
Hinata tried to speak but could only manage to cough up blood, bits of it splattering across Naruto's whiskered cheek.
"S-Sorry, Naruto. I got bl-blood on your face." Hinata wheezed
Naruto's tears only increased at her voice as she apologized for messing up his face while she was actively dying.
"Are you okay? They h-hurt you re-re-really bad." She continued to speak.
"Shut up! Why're you worried about me? I would have been fine! You're the one who's dying!" Naruto yelled at her.
Hinata only smiled at his outburst. The empty feeling Naruto felt from her never once wavering. She still had no ill feelings toward him. Even when she was dying because of him.
"It's o-o-okay, Naruto. As l-long as you l-li-live, it-it's ok-okay."
And those were Hinata's last words as her eyes closed and her breathing slowed to an unnoticeable amount.
Naruto could only cry over the body of the one person who held solely positive feelings for him. Someone who, despite being surrounded by people who despised his existence, continued to see him for who he was.
A human.
A child.
A lonely, human child.
"Shit, we-we gotta get the hell outta here before someone sees"
It was the one who had stabbed Hinata.
He and his friends had all turned to run away.
They would never make it out of the alleyway.
With one final cry of anguish, a small section of Konoha completely froze over.
Tundra
It was over as soon as Naruto arrived.
With Zabuza incapacitated, it was extremely easy for Kakashi to shove a lightning-encased hand through the missing nins torso, Rin style.
The guy in the mask who was with Zabuza had tried to get revenge, but Sasuke had turned him into a charred corpse.
Then Gato showed up, followed by an army of bandits. He boasted about his greatness and how everyone on the bridge would die.
And then it was over.
Half of the army was completely frozen over. These were the lucky ones.
The other half, along with Gato, died painful deaths at the hands of Sasuke and his superior control over fire. They were left charred similar to the masked dude.
And, just like that, the mission was over.
The team had become heroes of Wave country and even had the bridge named after them once it was completed.
The Great Heroes Bridge
Completely uninspired for sure, but it's the thought that counts.
With their mission completed and everyone on the team completely lacking any respect for authority, the team decided to take their sweet time getting back to the village.
And that's where they are right now barely 5 miles out of the Wave country.
Naruto had been walking alongside the team for a couple of hours now. Absolutely no conversation had taken place between the team as Kakashi read his book, Saskue glared at the space in front of him as if attempting to set a light on the path they walked on. And Naruto, well he stared at the clear sky above them, not a single thought behind those bright blue eyes.
Sakura felt awkward. She seemed to be the only one who felt weird since no one seemed to care that they hadn't spoken since their exit from the Wave country. So, she tried to break the tension.
"Sooo, you're our last teammate, huh? Kakashi said your name was Naruto?" Sakura asked Naruto
Naruto brought his head back down, leveling Sakura with a blank stare and a straight face.
"Yeah, that's my name. I'm kinda surprised you don't remember me. Sasuke seems to."
Sakura's eyes narrowed at his words. Did they know each other? Had they met before? Looking at her raven-haired teammate, she seemingly projected her question onto the boy without uttering a word.
Sasuke sighed in exasperation as he felt his teammates stare at his back. He began to speak without turning around to face his 2 teammates behind him.
"He's pretty different from how he was when we were in the academy. But yeah, I remember him. It's hard not to with how terribly loud and annoying he was. And he always wore that idiotic orange jumpsuit. I'm surprised anyone would able to forget him."
In reality, Sasuke was only able to recognize him because of how different he was. Despite his obnoxious attitude, Sasuke could see just how truly empty his eyes were. The number of occasions Sasuke could remember any light entering his eyes could be counted on one hand. And he had never been able to figure out what it was that brought Naruto such happiness.
It made him feel a sort of twisted kinship with the boy. The knowledge that somebody was suffering just as much as he was was strangely soothing.
At his description of Naruto, Sakura's eyes widened as she remembered him. And she felt stupid for forgetting. How could she forget one of the single most disliked people in the village? She could remember multiple occasions in which people, including her parents, had warned her away from the boy.
But as she looked at him now, she was shocked at how different he was. He walked with a certain aloofness, his eyes wide and blank. His hair that Sakura could remember being bright blonde had become much paler. It was nearly the same shade as Ino's.
And his clothes didn't have a single speck of orange on them.
As the group fell into silence once more, Sakura could only wonder what could cause someone to change so drastically in 4 years.
This thought served enough to occupy Sakura as the group dropped into silence once more.
**AN: Wow.
Jesus christ this chapter took so long to come out. I had it mostly done a while ago but for whatever reason, hadn't rounded it up until today. I started this chapter in JULY OF 2022. It's been over half a year since this was started and I had this borderline finished in December.
I guess this is what happens when one has so many projects going on simultaneously.
I don't have much to say here so I guess this is it for now. I have no clue when I will update any of my stories next or which one I'll update next, but I'll try to make sure it's one I haven't updated in a while.
Hope you all enjoyed my single longest chapter to date and have a nice day.
Also, remember to...
R&R
And enjoy your day!