Chapter 1: The Demon's Plight

It was a small smelly alley, the one he was currently rummaging around in.

Behind the old traditional Hi no Kuni cuisine restaurant, rotten fish, moldy rice, and the slowly greening spoilt beef mixed with sake congealed on the bottom of the overflowing trash bins that lined the back door of the establishment. He heard the regular customers say that the place used to be in business during the times before the Shodaime raised the ancient black maple forests, when Konohagakure used to be a remote farming town on the long endless grassy planes, rather than the stronghold of the most powerful hidden village within the elemental countries. Currently, he was crouched behind one of the overflowing iron drums, hidden amongst the heavy black trash bags as he waited for the scullery boy to finish dumping the day's leavings.

"Shinji! You great Idiot! Lock that fugu up in the can before you get one of those filthy urchins killed again!" cried the chef as he stuck his head out the back door and yelled at the skinny boy, "You don't want the frickin ANBU here disrupting my business again, do you!?"

The boy jumped and bowed as he opened the heavy locked iron can and dumped the organs and poisonous tissues of the deadly puffer fish they imported from Nami no Kuni into it with a mound of others, "Hai! Sensei!" he cried, and locked the can once again.

He had once tried some of that fugu two years ago, unknowing that it was highly poisonous, but only thinking of how much of the fish they had wasted and how good of a meal it would make for him. He nearly died from the poison before one of the ANBU found him gasping in a cold alley, paralyzed, and purple with hypoxia. The old man was livid and nearly closed down the place, passing another law stating the requirement for keeping such dangerous poisons under lock and key. Of course he recovered quickly, which amazed the doctors at the hospital the old man had forced to care for him.

For as long as he remembered, Naruto Uzumaki had been hated and shunned. Angry glares, disgusted grimaces, sneers, and jeers were the norm for the six year old street urchin, and those were only on good days. Sometimes the villagers would become even more agitated and violent. He'd been hit with rocks, pummeled with fists and feet, stabbed with various utensils, and even poisoned once by people who tricked him into trusting them. His life was nothing but one big rollercoaster of crushed hopes and disappointment with a smattering of physical and mental anguish just for garnish.

Unlike many other boys and girls his age, Naruto didn't have a family. He was an orphan, made parentless on the day of his birth, his father dying in defense of the village and his mother dying in childbirth. Naruto was then placed in the care of a foster family by the Sandaime, who came to visit the poor street urchin on rare days when he would treat him to a bowl of ramen or just to share some time with the dirty faced blonde. From what he learned overhearing conversations around the Hokage tower, Naruto had been shuffled around from foster home to foster home for the first two and a half years of his life, each saying they were unable to care for him due to his 'special needs.'

That really confused him. What special needs? He really didn't see anything all that different from himself and the other children, except for maybe those strange marks on his cheeks that mysteriously vanished over a year ago. Nothing he did was really all that different from the other children, yet he was constantly being singled out by the grownups, beaten from things he didn't do, starved for reasons he had no knowledge about.

His first memories were those of the dark basement of the orphanage, the water pipes dripping on his bedding as he huddled under the water heater for a little warmth. Sometimes, they would lock him in that basement for days at a time without any food or a place to toilet, then, when they decided to let him out, they would beat him for soiling the basement and would make him clean up the mess with his own bare hands, only to lock him in the basement for another few days.

The boy nearly starved to death several times, and would have gone crazy after the first few times the matron of the orphanage beat him almost senseless with that great bamboo rod of hers. Those were the worst days of his life as he was forced to endure the cruel torture he was made to face, the hours after where he would bleed constantly. When he was old enough, he escaped that horrible place, knowing that it was for the best but having nowhere to go or what to do with himself.

Yet, Naruto was not your normal child. For some odd reason, those things that would have destroyed a grown adult, those things that would have made hardened criminals cry themselves to sleep, only made Naruto push himself harder to live, to survive. It was that drive that forced him to live the life of a street rat and not go running to the old man every time something went wrong.

Of course, even after his escape from the orphanage, his life was anything but easy. He'd learned quickly that staying hidden was a valuable asset to have, and how quickness and a sharp mind were often better than a strong arm and a sharp weapon. He learned how to salvage scraps from the waste bins of the old restaurants, how to take clothes from wash lines and trash bins behind the seamstresses' shops, he learned to utilize the maze of large unused pipes beneath the huge village of Konohagakure as both a home and a means of hiding his movements from the villagers, and he even managed to glean a small vocabulary from a few good samaritans who took pitty on the poor street rat.

Naruto smiled as he palmed the small square book at his hip where a small bag sewn of scrap material was tucked between the waist band and the rope he used to hold his over large pants up. The book was his only real possession, "The History of the Fire Shadows, by Senjuu Tsunade", a comprehensive history of Konohagakure and its leaders by the granddaughter of the Shodaime. Though the Sannin Tsunade was a medic-nin by trade, the woman authored a book before she left the village, along with several compendia of medical knowledge. It was his most prized possession, something he picked up two years ago during the one time the woman at the village library hadn't been paying attention and allowed him in. Hours were spent in the back, looking at the pictures on the books and trying to figure out what the pictographs meant, when he discovered the book. Not thinking he pocketed the book, thinking he would put it back later, and picked up a scroll on martial arts. Not understanding how to read, he went up to the desk to ask if they knew anyone that could teach him, and that was when he realized his mistake.

Later that night, when he was crawling back to his hovel after being beaten a fraction from death by a few chunin who responded to the woman's call to 'kill the demon brat', he realized that the book was still in his pocket. It was from that little piece of literature that he learned, or began as it was, to read. At first he could not make heads or tails of the tiny pictographs. All those curved lines, those crossed and swirling figures, gave him a headache, yet he was undaunted by the struggle.

That year, when not dodging angry chunin with sharp pointy weapons, rocks and nasty bodily compounds hurled by village folk, or trying to find another place to sleep when the villagers discovered his 'homes' and burnt them to the ground, he used the skills learned on the streets to sneak up to windows at the school or into the crawl spaces above the rooms and listened in on the classes.

Of course he tried to enroll himself at first, he heard people saying that the school was free to all the children of Konohagakure, and surely he was a 'Child of Konohagakure' right? But that was not meant to be. Once he was spotted, the people simply beat him to a bloody pulp and threw him out the back way and into an alley, where, yet again, he had to pull himself back to his hiding places. Yet he did learn how to read, if not how to write, basic characters and how to make sentences, but his learning was incomplete. He tried to read the book, yet the majority of the characters were unknown to him. That was, until he met Ayame and Teuchi Ichiraku.

The Sandaime came on one of those rare days and took Naruto to dinner. Of course the man shied away from questions about his life, only simple things, like what he did that day, or how he was doing so far. The old leader was a wealth of knowledge. Every time he treated Naruto to dinner, he always taught him something. Nothing too big, nothing too small, but always interesting to Naruto. He would often talk about shinobi life, how ninja lived, missions he went on as a young man, and the basics of becoming a competent shinobi, and Naruto would eat it up, hanging on every word. He especially enjoyed the stories of Yondaime, the strongest of the shinobi Kages, who battled against the Iwa in the last Great War and sacrificed himself for the good of the people. It was stories such as those that made him want to become a ninja, and the old man promised that once he was eight, he would allow him to enroll in the Academy.

To be a Hokage, powerful and valiant like his hero the Fourth, to be loved and respected by everyone like the Third, to have prestige and honor like the Second, and to be revered as a legend like the First, that was his goal. The old man promised he would help him that very day he met the Ichiraku.

Ayame and Teuchi were kind people. They understood the boy and actually appreciated his bubbly sunny personality. When he came by they would give him free ramen, and Ayame even helped him learn to read many of the harder characters in his book, but he hadn't been to Ichiraku in many weeks now. He just didn't have the money. Of course they would give him free ramen, but he knew the Ichiraku were a poor family, and he didn't want to hurt his friendship or pressure them into giving him free food when he couldn't even pay for one bowl. The last time he had any food besides the rotten things he picked up from the garbage was when the old man treated him last, nearly two months ago.

His tummy rumbled slightly and a yanked the belt a little tighter. His hand brushed the small money pouch he had sewn on the inside of his thigh. He smiled at the thought, he'd been saving up the coins he found on the street and the occasional coin an out of town merchant or the supremely rare good samaritan would give him. He almost had enough for a bowl of ramen. Maybe a week more or a few more days if he got lucky, but right now, he needed some dinner. It was two days since he last had anything to eat. The last two days were spent on the run for a few blood thirsty chunin who decided it was good sport to burn him out of the last abandoned apartment building he made his temporary home in.

When the scullery boy turned around after dumping the slop pale into the garbage, Naruto let out a silent sigh of relief, but stifled it, when another presence entered the alleyway.

"Yo! Shinji!" came the voice.

The boy turned around and grinned, "Hey Dai! Long time no see!"

The two men embraced and Naruto's eyes widened in shock. It was one of the chunin who had torched his new home. Damn, he would have to escape somehow or go unnoticed, he thought with a grimace, he wouldn't be eating tonight.

"So how's life as a chunin, buddy?" the scullery boy asked his friend.

The chunin shrugged, "It's okay, I suppose, at least I don't have to hang around those losers anymore. Sweet Kami those idiots were annoying, I'm so glad that stuck up Uchiha was sent on that suicide mission a few days ago."

"You mean Tomoe-chan?" he asked the chunin, "The girl with the big cans?"

The chunin chuckled, "Yeah, that's the one. Came back in a body bag early last night. Serves her right," he scoffed, "Fucking Uchihas and their high and mighty eyes. Wish I could've pulled that bitch's eyes out and shoved it under that fucking Uchiha kid's face."

"Kid?" the civilian boy asked.

The shinobi nodded, "Yeah, some sort of Uchiha prodigy or something. Oh what the hell was his name again…ida…no…itashi?...Itachi! Yeah, that's his name. Kid's only eight and he's a frickin' genin already. Fucking monster if you ask me, those weird Sharingan eyes, he had his nerve to reprimand me, a fucking genin talking down to me, can you believe that!?"

The other boy chuckled, "Yeah, well, if he's as good as they say…anyway what have you been doing lately? You weren't at Mom's for Shinobu's party two days ago. What's up?"

Naruto silently ground his teeth. He knew where the chunin was two nights ago, he was setting fire to his home and trying to skewer him with the Kunai he stole from him. One actually tore through his arm and he absently rubbed the heavily bandaged part, wincing in pain, but keeping silent.

The chunin's face contorted into a feral grin, "Don't spread it around any jonin or ANBU, but," he chuckled, pulling out a brand new Kunai set, "We were able to flush out the demon from that decrepit building he was hiding in."

"No!" he said shocked, then a grin split his face, "I hope you took him apart nice and slow, Dai."

Chuckling the man regaled his friend how he had valiantly snuck up upon the sleeping monster and ambushed him, fought of the demon's attempts and killing him, and wounded him before he could escape. Fuming at the injustice of the whole thing, especially at the loss of those kunai the Sandaime had given him after he showed him how to use it a few years ago, he remembered it quite different.

Naruto remembered setting down to sleep and hearing voices in the middle of the night. The pair chunin simply torched the place and waited for him to come out, then had fun trying to skewer him, nothing valiant about anything he did, Naruto thought to himself as he silently ground his teeth, listening to the overconfident man beef himself up.

"And if it hadn't been for that fool Ishida, I would have that demon's head on my mantle right now," he finished with a sigh.

The other boy patted his friend on the back, "Don't worry about it Dai, you'll get the monster sooner or later, and avenge auntie and uncle."

He nodded, "Yes, once I have that demon's blood on my kunai, I'll finally be able to let father rest."

They chatted a few more minutes, and Naruto had to tighten his rope belt a little tighter to prevent it from growling and giving away his position, but in the end the two boys said their goodbyes and walked away.

He didn't emerge for another ten minutes. He wasn't a fool. He'd been ambushed like this several times and had only gotten away thanks to pure blind luck. Naruto also knew that he should just leave and get back to the safety of the sewers, but the lure of anything to fill the gaping hole in his stomach, and the slop the scullery boy looked so good that he decided to tempt fate.

Silently, he slipped out of the bags of garbage and made his way over to the freshly dumped garbage, uncovering a feast to his eyes. Of course to anyone else it would have been nothing but a pile of slop. Partially consumed chicken bones nasty mixtures of rice, soy, and half eaten platters of food were jumbled together in a congealed mass of food hours old. The pieces of sashimi and old fish parts stank and the raw cuttings of old beef were mixed in, creating a reddish mixture that looked and smelled as if someone had spit copious amounts of saliva into it, something that wasn't too farfetched either. Yet to Naruto, it was a feast, and he gladly began to dig in, consuming the disgusting slop with relish.

Half way through his meal, he felt killing intent wash through the alley.

"Well, well, well," came the familiar taunting voice he remembered from last night, "What do we have here?"

Immediately, he looked up and saw the Chunin from before squatting on the side of the alley wall, looking down and fingering the set of kunai the Hokage had given Naruto.

Naruto backed away, abandoning his meal as he inched away quickly. He had to make it to the street. He knew he would probably be able to lose the chunin in the crowd or maybe signal an ANBU that would be patrolling around the main thoroughfares, but it was a long way off, and the man was a chunin after all.

Dropping down, the man pulled the kunai out of Naruto's pilfered holster, "Well demon, I've got to hand it to you," he said, fiddling with the kunai, "You're pretty resourceful to have eluded me for two whole days. Don't know how you're doing it though," he said, with an evil grin, "Not like it'll matter."

Naruto was, for the first time in his life, faced with complete and utter knowledge that he would die right then. Sure he was resourceful, he was smart, and he had good instincts, but he was up against a chunin, alone in a bare alley, with nothing.

He was going to die.

"I-I…" he stammered out, holding his hands in front of him as if to ward off the man.

The chunin advanced slowly, the smirk widening, "Are you scared demon?" the man licked his lips in anticipation, "You know, my father was scared when you arrived, he begged you to spare his wife, yet you did nothing, killed my mother in front of him, then when he fought, you destroyed him and all the others who fought with him…"

Naruto was scared, the man was nuts, "I-I didn't kill a-any-"

"SILENCE!" he hissed, his eyes becoming glazed with anger and a touch of insanity, "You're attack six years ago cost me my entire family!" he shouted advancing forward, forcing Naruto to move deeper into the darkened alley, "My father died, my mother died, and I was put on to the streets! I had nothing. NOTHING!" raising the kunai, he yelled, "AND IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT YOU DAMN FOX!"

With that, the kunai plunged deeply into the boy's chest, sheering through lungs, and cutting veins, breaking through bone and sinew, leaving a jagged gushing wound from his shoulder to his sternum.

Naruto cried out, gurgling as blood filled his lungs.

"DIE DEMON! DIE!" the kunai continued to rise and fall, thrusting into his arms, his back his chest, his stomach.

Naruto knew he was dead.

AN: Thanks for reading.