Time passed slowly.
The days were muddled with the banality of everyday motions. The months stretched as fall drifted by and winter arrived.
The infant lay in his wooden crib.
He was a small silent form. He did not cry. He took in everything, cataloging every encounter. His first years passed quickly within the debilitated structures of the orphanage.
Quiet footsteps echoed on the creaky wooden floors. The boy reached the empty kitchen, grabbed pieces of stale bread, and hurried back to his room. His stomach grumbled loudly from malnutrition.
Hunger was a common ailment.
The streets were inhospitable.
He was unwelcome.
It took him a few years to learn his name. No one addressed him with familiarity until his first visitor, an old, withered man who was treated respectfully and regaled by the staff of the orphanage.
The man was the leader.
He was a man of great importance, and they called him Hokage-sama.
The Hokage visited him on a monthly basis and treated him with kindness. His company was short and inconsistent. The boy grew despondent that the kindness was brief. He couldn't rely on the old man.
He was a busy leader, and his rare visits did nothing to curb his loneliness. Through the short meetings, he learned his name.
His name was Uzumaki Naruto.
He retained fragmented memories from his past. He began documenting everything obsessively. The small child recorded the old memories and names of the people he loved and lost. He stole a journal from one of the older children to narrate his story.
His penmanship was messy, and his small hands shook from exertion. It took him a long time, but he felt comforted by writing in his old language.
He wrote his name a number of times on the first page to solidify the memory of his old self.
Eren, Eren, Eren.
He made a detailed sketch of his titan form and different scenes from his old life. He drew a colossal form of a grotesque figure standing over a long and sturdy wall.
He drew his mother.
The edges of her face were soft, and he took a long time to sketch the details in her eyes and gentle smile.
He spent many nights awake, writing and writing, drawing and drawing.
He sketched a girl. A red scarf was wrapped around her neck, and she stood on the roof of a debilitated building.
Mikasa, Mikasa, Mikasa.
He sketched a vast ocean with calm tides that stretched on. He drew grainy brown sand and a blond boy standing knee-deep in the water, holding a sparkling shell in his open palms, gazing out at the open seas with an expression of wonder. His blue eyes were bright, and his smile kind.
Armin, Armin, Armin.
He sketched a large forest with trees that stretched to the skies. He sketched men and women standing on the thick tree branches wearing dark green cloaks, swords held in their hands, their faces battle-worn.
He drew a dark-haired man with an expressionless face and tired eyes late into the night, hearing his voice echo in his mind as he committed his memory to the page.
Levi, Levi, Levi.
He drew his old house and his populated town. Shiganshina. His hands were sore as he drew his small family—mother, father, sister—gathered around the dinner table.
He hid the journal under his creaky bed and kept it away from the inquisitive eyes of the caretakers and the cruel hands of the other orphans.
He learned the new and unfamiliar language quickly. His advanced cognition helped him adapt and learn to read and write the letters, characters, and phonetic sounds. He was self-taught.
He stole practice books as the children slept and mimicked the letters in the books late at night. He spoke the words and phrases repeatedly.
The boy began to explore. Ignored and unsupervised, it gave him the freedom to move and investigate his surroundings.
The village was beautiful, bright, and busy. It was heavily populated.
The boy stood in the streets, watching the vendors and lively pedestrians. Whispers picked up, and the air grew heavier.
Naruto was three years old when he learned that he was unwanted within the walls of the village.
Faint whispers labeled him.
Monster.
It was reminiscent of another time when he was treated like a monster by others, glaring at him in distrust and fear.
"What are you?!" They screamed.
"I'm human!" He pleaded.
In another time, Mikasa had stepped out in front of the masses, unsheathing her blades as she shielded him with her body.
"My specialty is slicing up flesh. If need be, I'm prepared to display it. Anyone interested in experiencing my skills firsthand, step right up." She threatened.
Mikasa, Mikasa, Mikasa.
His best friend stood in front of the soldiers and military commanders, blue eyes determined and relentless as he yelled for his freedom, spreading his arms wide protectively, imploring the people to listen to him.
"He is not the enemy of mankind! I shall elaborate on his strategic worth with all the time I have left!" He vowed.
Armin, Armin, Armin.
Naruto ignored the glares and whispers and walked around. He noticed figures that appeared and disappeared quickly on the rooftops of shops and buildings.
They moved so fast that he thought it was a figment of his imagination, staring bewildered at the scene as the people around him continued going on with their day.
Observing their fast movements, he felt unsettled and wary. He needed information. He began sticking around longer in the streets, in the shaded corners, to listen in on conversations and frivolous chatter to understand the inhabitants better.
The village was called Konohagakure, the village hidden in the leaves. The village was beautiful in an old, quaint way. Traditional shops and wide streets were filled with different vendors and shoppers.
Civilians wore traditional long robes that were patterned with colorful and naturalistic designs.
The upper class wore rich silk robes, while the laborers and lower-class dressed in a more simplistic manner.
The village was surrounded by vast greenery and thick woods. It had large mountainous monuments that held the faces of previous village leaders. The soldiers of the village were called shinobi.
They were soldiers that protected the village.
The vendors and shops were not too different from his old home. His memories showed a similarity in shops and local businesses. The people in the streets appeared happy and content.
Naruto stayed a distance from the adults when he walked through the village at night. The inebriated adults were dangerous and unpredictable.
Night fell, and the boy sat in his room. He leaned against the wall adjacent to his small bed, a hand-held mirror in his hand. He gazed at the unfamiliar face peering back at him.
He had unkempt blond hair that fell into blue eyes. Naruto lifted his hand and pulled at the skin on his cheeks. He had strange whisker-like patterns on his cheeks.
"Uzumaki Naruto," he spoke.
His voice was small and scratchy.
"Naruto, Naruto, Naruto." He whispered quietly.
He tucked his thin legs to his chest and gazed out the window. It was night time, and he peered at the waning moon from his window.
His stomach rumbled, and he sighed, laying on the floor. His eyes drifted towards the cracked ceiling. He began to count the cracks silently.
His eyelids grew heavy, and he drifted off to sleep.
Naruto sat in his room, wiping down the blood on his knees with an old ratty shirt. The boy paused, and he blinked in shock as his cuts began to close.
The gashes began to knit themselves together. Naruto felt his stomach drop as he watched his body heal with wide eyes.
He healed thoroughly.
It reminded him of his titan form, entire limbs regenerating after being torn off his body. He released a shaken breath, and his mind raced at the discovery.
Accelerated healing was unnatural.
Other children in the orphanage wore bandages for days; some were in casts for weeks and months. Shinobi were hospitalized for their injuries after dangerous missions and underwent a period of rest.
He was different.
The boy inhaled and exhaled purposefully. He breathed and breathed as he rationalized his fears.
He could use this. Accelerated healing was advantageous.
Naruto nodded to himself in the quiet of his room.
He wouldn't be troubled with infections and other ailments normal people suffered from. He needed to understand his physiology better.
He needed more knowledge.
He needed to learn more about shinobi and Konohagakure.
He wanted to understand chakra.
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A/N- A little dry chapter but that should fix once he's a bit grown up.
Hope you liked it.
Powerstone goals!
200- 1 Extra Chapter
500- 3 Extra Chapters
1000- 5 Extra Chapters