Uzumaki Naruto was alone.
Nobody liked him. Nobody wanted him. Nobody wanted to be near him.
Everybody hated him.
He lost hope.
He succumbed to the darkness because there was no light to guide him.
...
Until he met her.
When he was two, the orphanage kicked him out.
He was forced to wander the streets alone. Starving. Cold.
He stumbled upon the Akasen, where some other shunned adults took pity on him and gave him an apartment to stay in.
His monthly allowance was limited, only letting him buy essentials.
Even with that, he couldn't buy food because shop owners didn't let him into their stores. Even if they did, they rose the price too high for him to pay for.
He was starving.
The bartenders in the Akasen often gave him leftovers for him to eat so that he didn't die of malnourishment.
When he was five, a girl walked into the Akasen.
She was the same age as him. Clean, short black hair. Clean clothes. A couple bandages and such on her face and arms. A clan crest on her back.
In her arms were several wrapped boxes.
She approached one of the street children and gave him and his friends a box each.
Naruto watched in confusion as their faces lit up and they quickly began thanking her.
She passed the wrapped boxes out to all the children.
She came to stand in front of him, a final box in her hands. She was frowning.
Of course she didn't want to give him it.
He was him.
But instead of walking away, she smiled and held it out for him to take.
Gingerly, he reached for it, hesitating and waiting for her to snatch her hands away and laugh at him.
She made no move and he took the box, unwrapping the handkerchief that was wrapped around it.
It was a bento.
When he looked up to thank her, she was gone.
There wasn't a name to her face.
When Naruto joined the academy, it was no different. No one liked him. Not the senseis, not the students. No one.
He'd usually sit on the swing at recess to stay away from all the other children.
Even if he did go up to them, they'd avoid him like the plague.
The girl from before often only played with that black haired boy that everyone coddled and liked.
They had the same crest on their back.
He assumed they were from a clan. All clans were prestigious. Rich. Respected.
Not like him.
When the two ran past him, the girl shot him a gentle smile.
It wasn't scathing.
It wasn't ill-intended.
She wasn't laughing at him.
It was just a genuine smile. One that Naruto would take comfort in forever.
Thanks to the academy, Naruto put a name to her face.
Uchiha Miyuki.
Naruto rarely talked to Miyuki.
It wasn't that she avoided him, or that they didn't like talking to eachother.
They just...never really ran into eachother.
Naruto was quick to notice that she wasn't the same as all the other girls in his class. They all worshipped that Sasuke-teme like he was a god. Naruto didn't see anything special about him.
They only cared about his looks, and how 'cool' he was.
He hated him. All of his clan. All stuck up, arrogant, sticks up their asses.
Except for her.
..She was different.
She was nice.
He didn't know why Miyuki would wanna play with a guy like Sasuke.
...
He..
He wished that she'd play ninja with him, instead of with Sasuke.
At least she wasn't mean like everyone else.
When Naruto was six, he had a reputation of getting to school late.
To his surprise, so did Miyuki.
Her excuses often included helping old people across the streets, or other things along those lines.
Naruto knew that she was telling the truth.
Miyuki was kind like that.
One day, he was extremely late for school.
He ran as fast as he could, knowing that he would get a scolding and get marked down.
And then a figure leapt down beside him.
Tentatively, he grinned at her. She smiled back, grabbing his hand and winking.
He blinked, and suddenly he was in front of his classroom door.
He was in awe of her.
Haru-sensei wasn't happy that they were late and humiliated them in front of the whole class.
"Maybe if you stopped making out before class, you'd get here on time," he had sneered.
Everybody laughed at them except Sasuke-teme, who glared at him.
Miyuki answered back without missing a beat.
"Maybe if you stopped cheating on your wife with Momo-sensei from class C, you'd be able to concentrate on teaching a class properly."
They both got a month of detentions.
In Naruto's eyes, it was totally worth it.
That was when his crush began.
A couple months later, both the teme and Miyuki took two weeks off of school.
None of the adults answered when the students asked where their precious Sasuke-kun was.
When the two came back, they looked horrible.
Naruto even felt slightly concerned for Sasuke-teme.
Both had dark bags under their eyes. They were paler than usual. Clearly they hadn't been eating properly.
Miyuki would often cry during class.
Naruto did some eavesdropping and found out their entire clan had been slaughtered before their eyes.
The two of them were the only survivors.
Sasuke-teme became very attached to Miyuki after that.
And Miyuki began wearing a pair of orange goggles around her neck.
Naruto grinned and absently commented that they were matching.
He got a quiet giggle in response, before she agreed with a small smile.
He had never felt so accomplished.
When Naruto was eight, he tended to play ninja with the other boys in the park. Miyuki joined a couple times, much to other boys' despair as she was a girl.
Sasuke had threatened them into letting her join.
When the day was over, Naruto and Miyuki watched as everyone was picked up by their parents.
Sasuke had gone home early.
They stared jealously at the other children.
She waved at him before running off.
When Naruto was twelve, he finally graduated the academy.
He complained about being on a team with Sasuke immediately, to which Iruka-sensei shut him down and embarrassed him in front of the whole class.
And then Miyuki stood up for him and got Iruka to apologise.
Miyuki was not one to hate people for no reason. She was justified.
Naruto was living proof of that.
Which is why he was so confused about the undisguised hatred she held for their sensei, Kakashi.
It even made him feel slightly bad for the Hatake.
She looked at the man with the same eyes everyone looked at him with.
Miyuki knew a lot about their sensei.
They took her word for everything she said, and they ended up passing the genin test thanks to her.
Whenever Kakashi-sensei quoted things, she would extend upon it, making Kakashi tense and such.
Miyuki didn't like the bridge builder.
That much was evident.
And Miyuki adored old people. She loved caring for them. Looking after them.
He would catch her helping them carry their bags or assisting them across the streets.
He didn't understand why Tazuna was any different.
Naruto was shocked when two ninja emerged from a puddle on the side of the road.
He had frozen in surprise.
He watched with wide eyes as Miyuki expertly took them down with no mercy, sneering at them and taunting them with harsh words.
Kakashi-sensei told her to let go of the one she was holding, and she complied after crushing his foot.
He was surprised when Miyuki took his hand and extracted the poison from him. A warm feeling washed over his body when her palm radiated green.
He saw her eyes widen when the incision she made healed up by itself.
Naruto was somewhat jealous.
Jealous of the fact that Miyuki could easily stare death in the eye and laugh.
Her eyes flickered to Sasuke as she joked around.
He grinned when he realised she was trying to help them resist Zabuza's KI.
Naruto was confused when she berated Kakashi.
"Friend-killer Kakashi," she had said.
He looked sympathetically at his teacher's crestfallen face.
Naruto could only watch as Miyuki ran at Zabuza and ended up trapped in a water filled prison.
He saw her panicking.
He watched her drown.
He couldn't do anything.
He needed to do something.
That was when he made a plan with Sasuke to help the two out of the prisons.
Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of glowing red from within Miyuki's water prison.
Miyuki had passed out once she was out of the water prison.
When Sasuke died, something within him snapped.
He felt chakra seep out of him in fury, bubbling red and orange.
Naruto saw Miyuki entered the ice mirrors with terrified eyes. His heart dropped when he thought that maybe she was scared of him.
She wasn't.
Her eyes were on Sasuke's body.
The chakra stopped bubbling out of him as he watched her eyes spin frantically, blood escaping down her cheeks like tears.
The scream that erupted from her throat was one that he would never forget.
The ice mirrors around them had shattered.
She simply went up to Gato's army and annihilated them with a swipe of her arm.
He cried in relief when Sasuke woke up.
Miyuki collapsed again.
Naruto was delighted when Miyuki invited him and Sasuke over to eat at her house.
He had never been invited anywhere before, and he was extremely excited. He was quick to begin to volunteer to help her get ingredients, but cut himself off when he realised she'd only get treated badly because of him.
He went home and showered, put on some clean clothes and set off with Sasuke to the Uchiha compound.
He thought they got stood up when Miyuki didn't come for a while.
And then Shikamaru came.
He was terrified.
He wished that he'd gone with her.
Miyuki wasn't one to fight.
She was a protector. A guardian. She preferred to defend.
Naruto only stood on the sidelines as Miyuki was confronted by the creepy snake guy, Orochimaru.
And then some strange person in a mask appeared, who she called "Mada."
She left Mada and Orochimaru to fight.
Naruto could hear her conversation with 'Zetsu' at night.
He heard her cry.
The next morning when they were faced against the sound team, Naruto didn't understand Miyuki's indifference to the fact that the so-called Zetsu had literally eaten the knocked out bodies of the sound team.
As Naruto paid more attention to her, he realised she only had a few emotions.
Happiness, of course. She was smiling and laughing a lot.
Sadness. He knew by the look in her eyes that she was sad often.
Anger.
Panic.
He was elated when Miyuki praises and complimented him after his fight.
He was worried when she left her own fight with tear stained cheeks.
She only smiled when he tried to cheer her up by exclaiming that they'd be fine, because he was protecting her. He was the future Hokage, after all!
Naruto anxiously waited for Sasuke and Miyuki to show up to the finals.
Sasuke did eventually.
..
Miyuki did not.
Sasuke automatically won his match, much to the displeasure of the crowd.
How disgusting.
They just wanted to see two Uchiha fight. They wanted to see children fight.
Naruto went home.
He wished Miyuki had shown up to watch his fight. To cheer him on.
When he got in, there was a single note on his kitchen table.
Naruto read it.
Naruto, for once in his life.
Didn't believe it.
Because the note was written by Miyuki herself.
His face crumpled and he dropped the note, tears escaping his eyes.
Uchiha Miyuki was dead.
A/N:
Oo love interest revealed
Backstory between Naruto and Miyuki!
Yay?
I drew something but I have to wait until the end of this book to publish it oooof-
~ Author-Neechan