Naruto Uzumaki was not a normal boy by any means. He wasn't the sort of orphan you looked at and pitied, the kind whose sad eyes drew out sympathy from strangers. No, Naruto was the kind of orphan you crossed the street to avoid. The kind who earned glares instead of smiles, whispers instead of comfort.
He didn't know why. He didn't know what he had done. But he knew, deep in his gut, that everyone hated him.
When he walked through the marketplace, vendors pulled their wares back as if he might curse the food with his touch. When he tripped and fell, people didn't help him up; they sneered, sometimes spat, sometimes kicked. And when he laughed—when he dared to grin wide and try to show the world he wasn't broken—people only glared harder, like his joy was an insult.
So he pranked them.
If the world was going to treat him like trash, then he'd give them reason. He'd splash paint on the Hokage Monument, tie strings across alleyways, leave stink bombs in the Academy hallways. The punishments didn't matter. The beatings didn't matter. What mattered was that for a few minutes, people were forced to look at him.
He existed.
But even a boy who laughs too loud and grins too wide has nights when the mask slips.
And lately, Naruto's nights had been strange.
It started small. Dreams.
At first, they were blurry. He'd wake up sweaty, a dull ache pounding behind his eyes, scraps of nonsense fading before he could catch them. Glowing screens. Words that didn't look like words. Strange voices speaking in a tongue he still somehow understood.
The dreams felt too sharp, too vivid to be only dreams. But Naruto shrugged it off, like he always did. Maybe it was the old milk again. Maybe it was stress. He always told himself excuses, because admitting the truth—that something was wrong—scared him.
But then the dreams grew worse.
They didn't just blur at the edges anymore. They hit him like kunai, fast and sharp. He saw images of himself… but not himself. Older. Stronger. Standing in places he hadn't been. Wearing clothes he didn't own. Fighting battles that hadn't happened yet.
And dying.
That one stuck. The dream of dying. A pain in his chest, his breath stolen away, the kind of fear that clung even after he woke up.
Naruto hated being afraid.
So he laughed louder, grinned wider, and kept it buried.
The fifth night broke him.
He fell asleep clutching his stomach, hunger gnawing worse than usual. He dreamt of fire. He dreamt of faces—Iruka, Sasuke, Sakura, old man Hokage—each one flickering before his eyes like ghosts. He dreamt of battles that shook the earth. He dreamt of a masked man, of red eyes that tore through minds, of gods who fell from the stars.
And then, he dreamt of himself.
Not Naruto. Not the loudmouth orphan of Konoha.
But a boy. Ordinary. Sitting at a desk with books stacked high. Laughing at moving pictures on a glowing box. Reading pages filled with ink drawings. Talking with friends about stories. Stories of Naruto Uzumaki.
Naruto screamed as the visions crashed into him. His head split with pain. His body convulsed. Two lives smashed together inside him like colliding storms.
And when he opened his eyes, gasping on the floor of his dingy apartment, he remembered.
He remembered both lives.
"I… I'm…" His breath came ragged. "I was… someone else."
It was madness. Impossible. Yet the memories were there, vivid as sunlight. He remembered dying—really dying—in that other life. He remembered watching his own story unfold as fiction. He remembered Boruto, Ōtsutsuki, the end of the Fourth War, all of it.
He pressed trembling hands to his face. "This… this is real. This isn't just a dream."
And then the world shook.
A pulse ripped through his chest. Not chakra. Not the fox. Something deeper.
The air shivered. His lamp burst with a pop. The floor groaned. A suffocating pressure blasted outward, rattling the windows, silencing the night outside.
Naruto gasped as the force spilled out of him uncontrolled. It felt like his very will was crashing into the world, demanding it kneel. For a heartbeat, he thought the entire building would crumble.
And then it stopped.
Naruto dropped to his knees, panting. His body shook. His hands buzzed with static.
"What… what was that…?"
"So, the brat finally cracks."
The voice rumbled from within.
Naruto flinched, eyes darting to the seal on his stomach. He closed his eyes, diving inward.
Bars. Darkness. Malice thick enough to choke.
And eyes.
Huge, molten-gold eyes staring at him through the cage.
Kurama. The Nine-Tails.
The fox tilted his massive head. "That wasn't chakra. That wasn't mine. So tell me, little vessel—what have you unleashed?"
Naruto's throat went dry. His new-old memories whispered the answer.
"…Haki," he said softly.
Kurama's lip curled in a humorless grin. "Haki? Whatever it is, it rattled my prison. You're lucky you didn't tear yourself apart. Play with powers you don't understand, and you won't live long enough to regret it."
Naruto swallowed. His fear was real. But beneath it, something else stirred.
Excitement.
For once, he wasn't just the dead-last orphan, the unwanted child, the jinchūriki.
For once, he was more.
The next morning, the world looked sharper.
Naruto slouched in his usual seat at the Academy. Iruka droned at the front, chalk scratching across the board. Sakura sighed at Sasuke. Kiba whispered to Shino.
Normal.
Except… not.
Naruto let his eyes half-close. He felt.
Iruka's fatigue pressed against him like heavy cloth. Kiba's excitement bubbled before he even raised his hand. Sasuke's irritation spiked when a girl squealed too loudly.
Naruto jolted. "Oh crap—!"
Everyone turned. Iruka frowned. "Naruto?"
"Uh, nothing! Just… strategy!" Naruto laughed too loud, scratching the back of his head. The class rolled their eyes.
But Naruto's heart raced with triumph.
Observation Haki.
That afternoon, he hid behind the Academy, gripping a stone.
He closed his eyes, focused. He remembered the feeling, the memory from the other life. Armament. Will made solid.
"C'mon… work…"
The stone cracked in his hand.
Naruto's eyes flew open. He stared at the fracture line. His grin spread wide.
"No way… it worked…"
It wasn't chakra. It wasn't Kurama. It was him.
Naruto dropped the stone, chest heaving, then threw back his head and laughed.
"All right… step one: don't die. Step two: train smarter. Step three…" He looked up at the Hokage Monument, at the stone face of the Third Hokage. "…Step three: change everything."
That night, Kurama stirred again.
"You're playing with that power again," the fox growled, golden eyes gleaming in the dark. "Careful. The world doesn't need another monster it can't control."
Naruto crossed his arms, trying to hide his trembling.
"For once," he said, voice firm, "I'm not scared of being a monster."
Kurama's grin widened, all fangs and menace. "Then you're even more foolish than I thought."
But Naruto didn't flinch.
Because now he wasn't just dreaming of being Hokage.
Now he was planning it.
And the storm inside him was only beginning.