Chap 1. Naruto's Bad Day

Five years after the night of the Kyuubi atack:

Naruto walked home from yet another depressing day of school, as he lumbered along, taking the long route to the orphanage which a stranger might mistakenly have called his home, he began to lament all the unfairness of his life, with each one he counted, he began to feel the dark void of depression becoming a heavier and heavier load to carry. He thought about how his teacher always seemed to bully him, to pick him for the chores no one else wanted to do and calling on him when he clearly did not know the answer. He thought about how all of the kids warily ignored him after (according to one particularly out-spoken blond girl) all of their parents told them to avoid Naruto. The thought of parents brought along an entirely different bought of self pity. Why didn't he have any parents, he knew that he had no parents from the time he had mistakenly reffered to one of the keepers at the orphanage, a kindly, round woman who always seemed to be smiling and all the children adored, as "mother", all the other children did afterall. She didn't strike him, no one ever so much as laid a finger on him, however the repullsed, disgusted, insulted look the woman gave the young blond after being called "mother" did more damage than any blow could ever do. As he thought about this, the giant stone of cold weight only increased inside of his chest and he felt the familiar lump inside of his throat begin to form. The thought of the caretaker woman brought about a new unfairness the univers had seen fit to bestow upon him, the attitude every one adult he had eve met had towards him. They were not eyes of anger, per se, or even really those of hate, Naruto wished with all of his might that those eyes showed such hot, direct emotions. The look the villagers gave the boy was one which seemed to reject his right to exist, which would look everywhere but him unless given absolutely no choice and when they finally turned upon him he was regarded like a week old peice of dog-shit. A heavy dose of digust mixed with annoyance that it was even there, this was how all of the eyes which ever turned on him saw him, like some absolute waste of space whose very existance brought inconvenience, the world would be a better, cleaner place without him. At this point the pain became so palpable that the slightly dirty, extremely lonely, depressed, child gripped at his shirt as if to try and pull his heart out of his chest in order to stop the pain.

"Why?" He asked himself as he walked into a dreary alleyway and sat down, hugging his legs pulled to his chest with his head on resting on his knees. "Why does everyone hate me?" As he asked this the lump became so big Naruto was suprised he could breath, he felt he all too familiar pressure begin to build up behind his eye, finally he asked the question which broke him every single time and this time, out loud.

"Why..." he asked the empty semi-darkness which surrounded this alley way during sunset, his voice cracking almost beyond the point where his voice might have been recognised as human, "why doesn't anybody care about me? Why doesn't anyone love me!?" At this, he finally broke down, his tiny shoulders began to heave as he cried with pain and lonliness so profound that not a single sound was made. The cry came out in a silent wail that trascended all level of pain, a cry born from feeling with all of his heart that not a single person in the entire world had ever cared if he lived or died, that everyone would be much better off if one day he had simply ceased to exist. He had no friends, no family no one who would ever comfort him when, at times just like the one at hand his grief became so unbearable that angry red streaks had appeared over his chest where he had attempted to claw his own heart out. His pants were now completely soaked by the copious level of mucus and tears which had spilled onto them, being that his face was still resting on them as he hugged his knees to himself which, even though he could not be sure as he had no memory of ever actually receiving one, almost made it feel like someone else was hugging him. Finally the heaving in his shoulders began to lessen and his sobs went from the silent, soul raking variety to the more audible, suppressed gasps heard by most children his age. Throughout the entire time only one word circled throughout his brain, this word became his entire world, it encircled everything he was, his entire existance was preoccupied with this one, simple query. "Why"

Finally, the child stopped crying, not because the pain had lessoned at all but because he was simply too tired to continue and he didn't have any liquid left in his body for which to make tears of, Naruto figured the he must have cried the entire ocean in his lifetime. Looking around, he realized two things, the first realisation being that it was already dark out, except for th moon which shone with unusual clarity and the second realization being that he was in an extremely scary alleyway. The moon shone just over the side of the building in front of him so everything that was not two feet in front of him and bathed in sunlight, was competely black. The walls on the buildin he was resting in were splochy and damaged, paint was peeling and several wooden planks on it were either broken or badly patched up...or both. As he looked around, this allyway which had, during the day been as commonplace to him as another other spot which he has passed countess times from he long walks to and from school, transformed itself into an ominous and peculiar new world, where all the things that go "bump" in the night must live and where no stupid children who were foolheardy enough to stay past night fall could ever hope to leave. Panic began to set in. At this time Naruto could only think of one sensible reaction in response to thie predicament, he ran away.

The young blonde ran blindly, not paying much attention at all to where he was going, only trying to escape the pursuing feet which his imagination had managed to procure as a bit of completely unneccessary, added motivation. Seeing a fence which seemed low enough, the child decided it would be a good trick to jump behind and over it in order find a place to hide. It was a very low lying, chain mail fence, perhaps three feet high at a stretch, Naruto however, being a five year-old had quite a bit of trouble getting over it. His situation was not helped by the fact that the longer he took, the closer he imagined his monster were getting and the closer they got, the more panicked he became, in parallel, the more he panicked, the more slowly he got over the fence. By luck he managed to roll his was over the fence, he landed relatively softly on his side, the blond was not even down a moment before he was up and diving over a bush right in front of him. He waited and listened to see if he had been followed when he was startled nearly to death by a very low, extremely ominous growling coming from behind him, Naruto froze.

Closing his eyes, the boy wished with all his might that whatever was behind him might simply go away and that he was just imagining things, it did not and he was not. With a sigh of defeat, the blond truned slowly around to come face to face with a very large and very mean looking dog standing in a position which very much hinted at less-than-peacful intentions. This moment has a very special and uniqe significance in the young boys life. For the first time ever, Naruto truly beleived that he was going to die. This was also a momentous occasion because he learned something very important about his personality, Naruto was a survivor. Set with a moment of real, life threatening peril the blonds mind did not freeze up nor did it panic, contrarily, his mind became completely occupied with with finding a scenario which did not lead to his death. He began to weigh his options.

1. Fight- The boy placed himself at about 1/3 this dogs weight and perhpas half it's size. Even thinking, as all young boys do that he was able to kick significantly more ass than he was actually able to kick, Naruto saw the methematical flaw in this plan. Add a mouth full of very sharp, hungry looking teeth and the end result did not look good for our little blond hero.

2. Run away- Naruto was quite aware that even for a child of his age he was no speedster, he was also clumsy and would have had a very difficult time with climbing the fence which blocked his potential escape. There was also the manner of the dog having four legs and himself only having two.

3. Stare the dog down- He had learned from "over hearing" a few conversations which some of his fellow children at the orphanage were involved in that if one could stare a dog in the eyes with no fear what-so-ever, the dog would back down and possibly even do tricks for you! The single, tactical flaw the he saw in this would be his also heard that if you showed fear, the dog would atack and Naruto was much too afraid to bet his life on a staring contest.

4. Destract the beast for just long enough to ge to that tree and climb it- Not a bad idea, dogs couldn't climb trees (or so he had heard) and the tree was just close enough in proximity to where he stood for it to be a feasible plan. Of course, it had a rather large possibility of failure and if it failed Naruto was quite convinced that the dog would eat him.

Plan four it was! Carefully, the blond began to inact his amazingly genius idea by slowly picking up a small stick locted near his feet (there were actually many small sticks and twigs scattered throughout the yard but this was the largest one within reach...it was not very large.) Rising just as cautiously, Naruto began moving the stick around in what he hoped was a payful manner and making soft, high pitched kooing sounds. The canine, a great, long-haired, black creature with a head the size of the boy's entire torso and a thick, almost bullish body, did not seem impressed, despite himself though, his eyes began to track the stick.

"Gooood boy" Naruto cooed. "You want the stick? Yeah you want it don't ya?" As the dog began to pay more rapt attention to the the stick, the blonde's movements became more limber and daring, he began feinting and wagging the stick inches infront of the beasts muzzle. "Oh yeah you want it huh?" The boy taunted, getting into his role "Who wants the stick? You want it?" What Naruto failed to take into account was the rather testy animal's pateince not being the highest. "OOOhhhhh yeah you want it huh? Who's stick is it? Whose sti-"

Naruto's next words were interupted by a very resounding "ROOF!!!" from the very large dog in front of him. The next bit of action happened in extremely quick succession over the span of about five seconds:

Naruto threw the stick up and over the dog with a yelp before propelling full speed to the tree roughly five feet away as quickly as his feet could take him.

The dog jumped a few inches in the air, caught the stick and then proceeded to breack said stick into several peices using his rather unfortunately powerful jaws.

The boy's foot made contact with the tree branch.

The dog's attention changed from the stick to the blond.

Said blond jumped with all of his might from the tree trunk to the top branch and scrambled up and over it.

The Beast began pursuing him.

Naruto was almost at a safe height.

The dog jumped.

Naruto felt a very sharp pain on his back before being pulled down, the fact that his legs got stuck in between a few branches no doubt saved his life, a ripping sound was heard.

The canine jumped, jaws open, tageting a small patch of unruly, upside down blonde hair.

A boy saw his death.

The dog discovered that there were two very annoyingly placed branches which his jaw could not fit through.

Naruto suddenly discovered that he was able to fly up trees at amazing speeds when given the proper incentive.

The dog began to play with the child's shirt and promptly forgot all about the child himself, with the exception of an odd bark or two.

By the time he was once again fully conscious of his own actions Naruto began to fully appreciate the fact that he had almost had his head eaten by a giant dog. Up until now, his body had been acting essentially on it's own in order to survive. The blonde began to go through that moment in his head over and over again and realised that at the point when his death seemed imminent, he had invited it. He had decided that his life wasn't really worth living, a large part of him still thought so.

"I should just go down there and let Fido eat me." Voiced the mores emotional side of his personality. The argument had merit, life sucked, their really was no point in going on. Everyone wished him dead, why not do the world a favor?

"Because gettin' ate by a dog would suck" This argument made by Naruto's more pragmatic self. Another perfectly legitimate point however, judging from what the creature was doing to his shirt, Naruto could assume that his death would take quite some time and it would not be enjoyable.

"Well, we're pretty high. Why not jump?" Not a bad idea. The blonde stuck his head out from the tree trunk he was grasping for dear life and decided that if he jumped head first he would most likely die.

"Yeah, why not? It'd be fast. Let's go for it, life sucks." Well, it seemed that both sides of him were in unanimous agreement, guess it was the end. As Naruto prepared to jump, he began to wonder if perhaps anyone would regret treating him the way they did. As he descended the tree, branch by branch he decided, probably not. Life really was not worth living. He began shimmying along a rather low lying branch which actually ended outside of the fence. The blonde was glad that it was night time, he did not want to have a detailed view of the ground as he plummeted towards it. Infact, he decided that he would close his eyes as he jumped. Naruto let go of the branch and landed nimbly outside of the yard, ignoring the dog which had been begun barking madly the moment he had started descending. Well, no time like the present, the boy thought as he opened his eyes to begin the leap, imagine his suprise when he found himself walking purposefully in a direction that, even at this time of night, he could tell he had never been.

Strangely enough though, the young blonde was not afraid, not even nervous, in fact he was down right impatient to get...well, wherever it was that he was going. The child had no idea at the time but the deep and complete despair he had found himself in, accompanied by the feeling of certain death he had just experienced had triggered a fail-safe response, bestowed upon him by his father before Minato had left to fight the Kyuubi. Originally, the seal that had unlocked itself and was now glowing quite brightly over his heart in the dark night had not been supposed to go off until Naruto was 13. However a fail safe had been applied to it, one with a very specific imperative; Kushina had been of the opinion that if it so happened that Naruto was not treated as a hero and was instead treated with fear, anger and hatred, if he was isolated by the entire village from the time of his childhood he should be given the secret early. Minato relented only under the condition that said villagers put Naruto in a situation where he would become truly afraid for his life, seals however, are not people and can abide only to the standards to which they were set. It had lain dormant, directly under the child's skin for over five years and when the proper chakra spikes had ocurred which the seal read as "extreme depression" and "imminent death" the seal came off and the young blond was taken with the over-whelming compulsion to seek out a segment of Konoha that even the Third Hokage, with his crystal ball was entirely unaware of.

So, on Naruto walked, turning this way and that through different streets, until he reached the border of the vast forest which surrounded the Village Hidden in the Leaves, he then continued to walk without the slightest hesistation. Naruto felt so peculiar, he knew that he had no idea where his body was taking him, he also knew with just as much certainty that he wanted to get where he was going. Some part of him was absoultely sure of where he was going, more sure about that then he had been about anything before. On he trouped, through the dense forest and thick underbrush, taking turns at seemingly random moments, until the sun began to peek into the forest through the tree tops, still he walked. Naruto passed waterfalls, bears, creeks, ponds, hot springs, geysers and the boy kept walking, he walked up hills and underground he walked until it was dark again, never once getting tired. Finally he reached a tree that did not seem at all different from any other tree except perhaps that their was a slightly larger than average crow resting on one of it's branches.

"Squawk!" The bird screeched.

"Greetings," The child replied in a monotone voice, not his own. "I ask you fair brother, how many straws does it take to build a crabhouse?"

The black bird cocked her head at the boy a moment before responding, "Squawk! Nineteen plus twelve unless you've got some fare to share?"

"Then let it be," Naruto continued on monotonously, on some level he was still aware of the fact that he should not have any idea what was going on, despite the fact that he so clearly did. "I've got four berries for a bird who ferries the lost souls from this world to the next." The child produced three golden, trinangular berries, he was not outwardly aware of this at the time but these were amongst the most rare and delicious berries in the world. He had picked them up at one point when passing the only bush in the entire forest which grew them.

"Squawk! Then let it be!" At this, the bird descended from her pirch, plucked the berries from the boys hand and flew inside inside the roots of the tree. Naruto simply stood in waiting, as if what had just occured was an everyday happenstance. Hoewever, if the child should have been suprised at anything that happened during this excursion (and at some lever he was suprised at everything) it would the sudden opening of a door located inside the trunk of the tree. He showed no signs of surprise however, and simply strolled in as if it were the most natrual thing which could possibly happen. After stepping into the tree and having the door disapear as if it where never there, the floor under Naruto suddenly collapsed and he descended down a suprisingly smooth. dirt slide with the same confident, non-chalance he had kept throughout this entire trek.

Eventually, the ground evened out and the boy continued walking down an entirely black path with no possible way of knowing what was in front of him or where he was going...it probably goes without saying that he did. Walking down the hall, part of his mind was still in shock and horror at the fact that he had competely lost control over his body and most of his mind, he vaguley wondered if he was, parhaps possesed by some ghastly demon who was now bringing him into it's lair where said demon could consume to boy at leisure. Suddenly, Naruto turned off of the tunnel path he had previously been taking and crawled through a small hole in the wall that was covered by the moss growing all over the tunnel walls, his arms now on the cold, earthen floor, the blonde shuffled through the much smaller tunnel, earning several scrapes in the process until, finally he began to see a strange, blueish light. As he emegred from the tunnel his eyes widened in shock at the scene before him. Phospherant, blue moss seemed to grow on every inch of the walls, floor and ceiling, casting an almost etheral glow to everything in the cave. That was not the amazing part though, the cave was roughly the size of a medium sized house and was sculpted in way which made it seem man-made, though it was rather hard to tell with all of the moss. However, it was absolutely not the size of the tunnel which gave even this seal-controlled blonde breif pause, the eye truly eye-dropping facet of the room was an which alter stood on the far side of the cave. On the very top laid a gigantic scroll, resting peacefully in the jaws of a gigantic, moss covered dragon with eyes that might have been rubies if they were not so very large. The altar was in the shap of a very ornate flight of steps and on the next rung down laid several weapons that looked to be each worth several fortunes, somehow all that rested on the alter was completed untouched by the hands of time as well as the hands of the strange moss. On the rung down lay many, smaller scrolls in a very neat row which spread wider then two of Naruto's body lenghts, it was the bottom rung.

Acting with the same droll confidence that had landed the young boy in this predicament in the first place, Naruto approached the alter, kneeled down, grabbed the scroll which lay to the far left and, removing the seal which kept it from spilling out, ripped open the mysterious scroll. The moment he did this Naruto felt his mind return to normal, he was given just enough time to wonder what in the world was going on before the scroll exploded upwards with smoke and a loud "Puff!".

He instantly dropped the scroll and began to back away before he saw that a strange, dark figure had seemingly emerged from the scroll itself, the figure wasted no time in moving in for the kill. The blond tried to retreat however, a mix of being so thourghly confused and terrified on top of having not had any form of sleep or rest for over fourty-eight hours finally culminated in his legs simply giving out on him. Helplessly, the boy watched as the strange being fell upon him. Naruto's world went black.

A/N: Zomg a cliff hanger! I wonder what happens next! Well you'll just have to find out won't you? Reading and reviewing makes me happy and motivates me to write more quickly. just sayin. ^_^

Next time we begin to get into the real thick of the plot, it should be fun. My apologies if this chapter seemed emo to you but I think it was justified and there wilol be plenty of action and bad-assery to be had in the later chapters.

Next chapter is going to be extra long so it may take me a few days. Til then everyone!