Chapter 2: An Uzumaki in Uchiha Clothing
It had been seven years since the death of Minato Namikaze, the Yondaime Hokage, and the council had given up on ever finding a suitable successor to the man, instead preferring to allow his predecessor, Hiruzen Sarutobi, retake the mantle of Sandaime Hokage to once again lead Konohagakure, The Village Hidden in the Leaves, to continued success. Over the course of the past seven years Hiruzen had aged considerably, brought on by the seemingly unending piles of paperwork he was forced to contend with alongside the grief he still felt from the loss of his wife. Truly he only retained three real joys in his life, despite not admitting to one of them, those being; watching the life of the young jinchuuriki as he grew up in the Uchiha household, helping to guide and mould the shinobi of the village as they grew steadily under each other's tutelage, and taking the occasional peep at the women's bath house using his crystal ball. Unfortunately he rarely got the opportunity to partake in these joys of his, of which the former was an even rarer occurrence than the others.
On one unusually quiet afternoon in terms of the paperwork he had to complete Hiruzen took a moment to contemplate on what he knew of the boy's life. The Uchiha main house had been full of life for these past seven years. The Uchiha-heir,Itachi, had excelled in his shinobi training at a rate beyond that of any shinobi who had come before him, reaching the ranks of ANBU at age ten and was on the verge of being promoted to captain within the elite's ranks. Thanks to his kind and caring nature Itachi was one of very few Uchihas able to look past Naruto's status as a jinchuuriki and openly treated him as a member of the family, much to his father's disgust. While he obviously cared for both of his younger siblings he seemed to spend more time with the young boy often playing with him when they had a spare moment. Not to say he didn't pay any attention to his sister, it was merely that she was more focused on desperately trying to earn the praises of their father by practising her shinobi skills near constantly to try and ravenously dig her way out of Itachi's long shadow and by emulating Fugaku in her treatment of Naruto, by openly looking down on the boy and treating him like some kind of servant. Naruto for his part was growing up to be a cheerful boy, who while not as intellectually gifted as his siblings could take a lesson to heart if given the proper motivations.
Across town in the Uchiha complex Naruto was getting told for the fifth time that week why he was not allowed to try learning ninja techniques;
"If I hear one more complaint out of you about not being taught ninja skills, I will have you out of this home do you understand me brat!" Fugaku roared at the protesting boy,
"But Tou-san, please…"
"You are not a Uchiha and you are not one of my children. You will learn nothing from us, do I make myself clear? You can attend the academy from next year onwards and you can learn the skills from them, but you will learn nothing from anyone within these walls."
"Yes, sir." Was the only reply given as the blonde boy walked away dejectedly. The boy knew better than to continue, it wouldn't have been the first time that Fugaku had intentionally left the boy alone in some far corner of the village to fend for himself, only returning days later covered in bruises and cuts or on particularly bad days had literally dragged himself across the Uchiha boundary due to broken limbs or gaping cuts across his body. Why the entire village hated him so, he couldn't understand, the most he'd ever done was vaguely harmless pranks. As such he couldn't understand why the villagers looked at him such rage and disgust, only referring to him as a demon or worse. The only reason he returned to the Uchiha compound, where at least the beatings rarely rose above a sharp spanking or a harsh dressing down, was that he knew at least his surrogate mother Mikoto and his adoptive siblings would be saddened by him going missing. He knew he was adopted having seen the differences between himself and literally every member of the Uchiha clan when he was five. Pulling himself from the depressing thoughts about the village he decided to look for his siblings, or at least Itachi anyway. Sasuke had started acting coldly towards him recently, in an attempt to impress her father, and often ignored him while spending much of her time on her training, devoting herself wholly to it.
Running to the home nearest the Uchiha compounds gates he asked as politely as he could if the family had seen Itachi pass through, back from another one of his secret mission as a high level ninja, and when they denied seeing him he turned around again knowing that meant there was only one person left to go see about getting something to do, his mother. Since he wasn't being taught how to perform the basic ninja skills Naruto's days were often left empty and alone unless Mikoto decided to teach the boy some other skill or give him chores to practice them with. While he would rather play than be forced into the tasks, not having anyone to play with often made this a preferred alternative to being alone. Whilst it wasn't explicitly stated by anybody it was clear that Naruto was being raised to be a retainer or some sort of guard for Sasuke once they were older, and to those involved in the plotting of the coup in power, and she wouldn't always be in the village.
Naruto eventually found his mother in the kitchen about to begin the preparations for a mighty feast, calling out to her he asked;
"What's with all this food Kaa-san?"
"Oh Naruto-kun, we're going to have a little celebration tonight once Itachi comes home," she replied smiling the young boy, unlike her husband she had always accepted the boy as one of her own and loved him as equally as her other children.
"Why? It's just another mission isn't it, he'll have taken care of it no problem, Nii-san is the best."
"Exactly, and its because of his skill that he is getting even more recognition, he's going to be promoted to captain soon, so I thought we could have a little feast." She explained happy to see Naruto's face go from confusion to wonder at the news about his brother. "Unfortunately though, my stomach's feeling a bit rough at the moment so why don't you take over for, while I go lie down for a little while, eh?"
Naruto's face fell a bit at this, not believing for a second that his mother was ill, knowing that she had really just wanted him to practice cooking some more. It wasn't that it was a common occurrence, it was just that Mikoto liked to every so often shirk her own duties onto the young boy every so often so that she could relax, trusting Naruto entirely to get it right. Sighing, knowing that he wasn't really being given a choice he agreed and began sorting out the food that was laid out on the kitchen into the various dishes that Mikoto had quickly told him she wanted before heading up to her room.
The hours passed quickly while Naruto worked diligently to cook the meals to perfection,during which time Itachi returned home to a joyous reception, Sasuke ended her training early to spend the rest of the day with her brother and Fugaku had come into the kitchen expecting to see his wife as the person behind the delicious smells wafting from the kitchen. Scowling when he found the real culprit he made sure to tell the boy not to ruin the food or he would face dire consequences. Eventually the rest of the family gathered to the dinner table while Naruto began to bring the dishes, Itachi and Sasuke both marveling at the glorious dishes piled in front of them, before the mood was ruined by Fugaku refusing to allow the chef to join them at the table for dinner, stating that "This is a dinner for family," despite Itachi's requests.
The next day members of the Konoha Military Police Force came to discuss something with Itachi, that lead to a long and overly loud argument with Fugaku that was eventually revealed to have been about the suspicious death of fellow Uchiha prodigy Shisui. This argument would lead to a void growing between both father and son neither able to see the other's point of view, which in turn lead to Sasuke getting her wish of being noticed by her father after he seemed to finally remember he had another child which he could mould and Itachi spending more time hanging around Naruto.
Nearly six months after his promotion and after another particularly loud shouting match between the normally reserved Uchiha and the clan head Itachi was relaxing in his younger brother's presence while the young boy practiced calligraphy at his mother's behest when suddenly he asked, "How do you do it Naruto?"
"Hmm? How do I do what Itachi-Nii"
"How can you stand the hatred Tou-san and everyone else throws at you? How can you still be such a happy guy? How can you still look at Tou-san with such love when all he does is insult you and put you down?"
"Oh that's easy." Came the cheerful reply. "You and Kaa-san of course, and anyone else who doesn't treat me bad, sure the words and the beatings hurt, but when I see you guys smiling at me and being so kind the other's words don't seem to hurt so much, like I could take it all just to see your smiles. Tou-san doesn't completely mean what he says, I know that, he wants me to grow up strong and independent knowing that there may be a time I can't stay here anymore, that and he always catches the villagers who hurt me too much"
Itachi looked somewhat incredulous at the speech Naruto had just given, never really considering that Naruto could be so perceptive and caring, "Hn, you're a pretty weird kid for an eight year old."
"Oh because you were so much better, Mr. Youngest ANBU soldier in history." Came the snarky reply, "Now if I could just figure out why Kaa-san wants me doing calligraphy of all things, its not even that relaxing, there's too much pressure not to screw up"
"Let me take a look at it," Itachi said reaching over and taking the pieces of paper from the boy, "Hmm, you're strokes are good you know, very clean, nice precision, you keep this up maybe get a bit quicker with it you could look into learning fuinjutsu, wouldn't that be cool?"
"Fuinjutsu? What's that?"
"The ancient art of seals kid, it can do loads of cool stuff, storage, trapping, summoning, heck I even heard the fourth could use seals to teleport himself places. Its an old set of techniques and mostly unknown now a days of course, but thats what makes it so much more effective, not many people learn how to combat dead art forms, only the real masters of the art can use it in battle though." Itachi taught somewhat enthusiastically, he'd been interested in fuinjutsu when he was younger, only drawn away from it when his father told him that it was not the Uchiha way to use scribbles to defeat opponents.
"Woah, you really think I could do that?" The boy asked enraptured at the thought of being master ninja able to use techniques most people hadn't faced, before being reminded of their father's words, "actually, that probably won't happen, Tou-san seems to think I'm useless, he won't even let me learn anything other than the academy techniques."
"Ahh don't worry about that Naruto he's just worried about what the villagers think, for no reason at all they think the Uchihas had something to do with the Kyuubi's attack, and with them seeing you as 'The Demon Brat' they probably think we're raising another one to destroy the village from the inside, which is ridiculous. You can barely hurt flies." Itachi joked
"Hey, shut up. Just you wait I'm gonna get so much stronger and then you'll see, I'll use my strength to protect Sasuke, my precious people and the village, I'll be that great, Believe it!" came the boastful response.
"Oh you will, will you? You're gonna protect everything? That's a good dream otouto, power should never be sought for personal gain or satisfaction, only for the sake of others. Remember, you could defeat every opponent you come across easily but still be weak, only those who are willing to sacrifice themselves for others, especially their precious people are the truly strong."
"Hai, Nii-san! I will definitely become that kind of person, Believe it." Naruto confirmed.
It wouldn't be until much later in his life that Naruto would find that strange, especially when he considered the events that would unfold only a few months later.