Midnight Blue [Naruto Fanfiction]

♤Prologue♤

Having three younger siblings that he protects with his life, his only goal was to keep them safe and see them unharmed till they graduated their respective academies and beyond their careers.

  It began that night. The birds were quiet that day, not a peep to be heard and not a chirp to sound. The resonating silence clawed at his ears.

  On the day of his seventh birthday, with the rank, Chunin, under his belt, he found his biological siblings ranging from the ages of only nine months and a year old bundled with a ragged binky in a box at the foot of his door. Without a second thought, he took them in - his protective instincts at fellow kin running high, even if he didn't know it. It imitated the feeling of anxiety and exhilaration.

  When he turned eight, he received the rank of Tokubetsu Jonin, and so, he was finally able to support his small family of four, including himself.

  Moreover, an old Namikaze trait, generally experienced among women of the unfamed clan - and only once in a lifetime will it only be found in a man - caused him to gain feminine features. This phenomenon was absurd to an extent, and Naruto did not understand why many off-duty subordinates mistook him for a little girl.

  Consequently, in his small family, he was labeled the title 'Okaa-san' by his younger siblings. The only reason for this was because he knew how to cook delicious food, clean well - despite him telling (see: lecturing) his siblings about how backward that mindset was- and teach them whatever they did not understand. The multitude of times he had to force himself not to pull his hair out when his younger sibling did not understand his explanations would be astronomical, but he preserved and prevailed.

  Around the age of nine was when he first met Uchiha Sasuke. He had bumped into the ten-year-old boy and his older brother, Itachi, shopping through the town square. Sasuke was immediately smitten, had noticed how lovely the blond was and how intelligent his answers were in response to his brother's questions. Adding to the fact, he was also well-respected by his older brother - unlike the useless Kunoichi - if they could even be considered a Kunoichi - that followed him around asking for his brother.

  When the pretty blond left them to their own devices, all that Sasuke could think about was Naruto.

  Naruto, Naruto, Naruto.

  The beautiful 'girl' he met earlier enchanted him beyond repair until Itachi told him that the 'girl' was a boy. On that same day, Sasuke passed out in the middle of a sparse crowd.

  When he turned twelve, Hiruzen sent him to attend the Academy, believing that having the Uzumaki experience the lost joy of being a child - and knowingly residing guilt buried in his heart for what he stole from Minato and Kushina's boy.

  For all that, he did not realize placing the Uchiha in Naruto's team would lead to certain complications in the future...